According to him, the previous version, SQL server 7.0, which was releasedin 1998, was a major architecture release for Microsoft, as the futurereleases for the next 10 years were to be based on this: "If you have thefoundation correct, you can add more rooms to it."

However, the previous version could only go for price performance in thetest conducted by Transaction Processing Council (TPC) as Windows NT couldonly use eight processors in one box. Therefore in terms of raw performance,while Oracle could clock up to 1,35,000 transactions per minute (tpm) on aSun Solaris Platform, with 12 processors, SQL 7.0 could clock only up to40,670 tpms on an 8-way Windows NT platform, says Ingithiraj. Now deployingthe beta version of SQL Server 2000 on the Windows 2000 platform, (the newerversion of Windows NT, which was released in February this year and has 12Intel processors) TPC gave a tpm of 2,27,000 on compaq machines. And this isa world record, which beats the closest competitor Oracle, whose maximum tpmis 1,35,800 on an IBM risk platform, he adds.

SQL Server 2000, in conjunction with the complete Windows DNA 2000 platform,will make it easier for corporations of any size to conduct business overthe Web with customers and suppliers, and to integrate legacy systems withnext-generation business solutions, claims Ingithiraj.

SQL Server 2000 delivers fully integrated, standards-based XML support thatis flexible, high-performance and easy to use for Web developers anddatabase programmers, he adds.

Its data mining capabilites also enable customers to identify newopportunities and predict winning strategies and outcomes by automaticallysifting through large volumes of business information. By integrating adata-mining engine into SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services (formerly OLAPServices), Microsoft has vastly reduced the complexity of this sophisticatedand powerful technology. Analysis Services includes clustering and decisiontree data-mining algorithms and is easily extensible by third parties viaOLE DB for Data Mining.

SQL Server 2000 enables high-performance, standards-based, secure access viathe Web through HTTP, even through a firewall. Web-based clients retain fullcapabilities whether accessing the relational store or Analysis Services.SQL Server 2000 will also deliver an initial installment of Microsoft'svision for software scale-out, the ability to distribute database workloadacross a cluster of commodity servers. Rather than replacing old systemswith bigger, more expensive ones, software scale-out achieves scalabilityincrease simply by adding additional commodity servers to a databasecluster. SQL Server 2000 also introduces the "shared nothing concept" - Ithas distributed partitioned views, a feature that provides e-commercecustomers with unlimited scalability by dividing workload across multiple,independent SQL Server-based servers, thereby increasing efficiency andspeed across all servers, instead of overloading one server.