Why Build Database Code with .NET?

For many years, database developers have used Microsoft’s Transact SQL (T-SQL) language to create stored procedures and other application code that runs within SQL Server. With Visual Studio (VS) 2005, Microsoft is offering them the ability to write this server-side code with the .NET Framework and languages such as C# and VB.NET, leaving developers to ask: when and why should I use .NET as opposed to T-SQL?

Using .NET to create stored procedures and other database code offers several benefits:

Similar APIs. For a developer already familiar with building database client applications, .NET offers a more consistent set of APIs than those offered by T-SQL.

Possibly better performance. For many applications, overall performance is determined by the amount of data being processed. But for some applications, particularly those that are compute-intensive, .NET may offer better performance. For example, a geographic information system not only performs database queries but must also perform intensive calculations on the data. Using .NET for such an application could result in better performance than T-SQL.