SQL Server 2000 has been one of Microsoft's most popular products ever, with more than 1 million licenses sold; there is a huge installed base. Robust sales of many books on SQL Server attest to this. The next release of SQL Server, version 2005, represents five years of development work by Microsoft. It will be a major upgrade from SQL Server 2000, with many major changes in the core technology. After a period of testing the new product, most companies are expected to upgrade to the new version. In fact, tens of thousands of companies have already been working with the beta. As companies evaulate whether and when to upgrade, they'll appreciate the advice of an insider such as Eric Brown, who was intimately involved in evangelizing about the product for three years. He knows what questions companies have, and what questions they don't even know they need to ask. They'll also appreciate the concise, dense "distilled" format - a handy, quick reference to the most common parts and new features of SQL Server 2005 delivered in a short and focused presentation. This book should appeal to anyone who works with SQL Server - administrators, developers, and technical managers alike. After they have read this book, then they will be ready to go on to one of the big, doorstop references to SQL Server; but this is the book they will turn to first