Web Application Features

SQL 2000 includes a collection of new features designed to simplify development of server-based Web applications and to play a supporting role in Microsoft’s upcoming .NET development platform. In particular, SQL 2000 can do the following:

• Generate Web content in HTML and XML (Extensible Markup Language) format and accept data in XML (see the sidebar “XML Concepts and Technologies“).
• Accept database queries and updates over the Web, using the standard Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP).

Together, these features allow SQL 2000 to take over much of the work currently performed by handcrafted code. This could benefit two types of applications:

Web applications. For server applications that send Web content to users’ browsers, SQL 2000 can generate content and handle browser requests. This allows Web applications to be built with less code and exhibit better performance than solutions based on Active Server Pages (ASP) and previous versions of SQL Server. SQL 2000 will particularly benefit Web applications that use XML as a content format. XML is attractive in this role because it provides a way to target the same content to many different devices and browsers. Specifically, an application can use SQL 2000 to extract database data into an XML document and then create multiple presentations for specific browsers or devices by applying different XML style sheets to the document.