Database Mirroring
Extend log shipping capabilities with the database mirroring solution. You will be able to use database mirroring to enhance availability of your SQL Server systems by setting up automatic failover to a standby server.
Online Restore
With SQL Server 2005, database administrators are able to perform a restore operation while an instance of SQL Server is running. Online restore improves the availability of SQL Server because only the data being restored is unavailable; the rest of the database remains online and available.
Online Indexing Operations
The online index option allows concurrent modifications (updates, deletes, and inserts) to the underlying table or clustered index data and any associated indexes during index data definition language (DDL) execution. For example, while a clustered index is being rebuilt, you can continue to make updates to the underlying data and perform queries against the data.
Fast Recovery
A new faster recovery option improves availability of SQL Server databases. Administrators can reconnect to a recovering database after the transaction log has been rolled forward.
Standards-based Information Access
Any object, data source, or business intelligence component can be exposed using standards-based protocols such as SOAP and HTTP—eliminating the need for a middle-tier listener, such as IIS, to access a Web services interface that is exposed by SQL Server 2005.
SQL Server Management Studio
SQL Server 2005 includes SQL Server Management Studio, a new integrated suite of management tools with the functionality to develop, deploy, and troubleshoot SQL Server databases, as well as enhancements to previous functionality.
Dedicated Administrator Connection
SQL Server 2005 provides a dedicated administrator connection that administrators can use to access a running server even if the server is locked or otherwise unavailable. This capability enables administrators to troubleshoot problems on a server by executing diagnostic functions or Transact-SQL statements.
Snapshot Isolation
Snapshot Isolation (SI) level is provided at the database level. With SI, users can access the last committed row using a transitionally consistent view of the database. This capability provides greater scalability.
Data Partitioning
Data partitioning is enhanced with native table and index partitioning that enables efficient manageability of large tables and indexes.
Replication Enhancements
For distributed databases, SQL Server 2005 provides comprehensive schema change (DDL) replication, next-generation monitoring capabilities, built in replication from Oracle to SQL Server, merge replication over https, and significant merge replication scalability and performance improvements. Additionally, the peer-to-peer transactional replication feature improves support for data scale out using replication.