Datasheet

Chapter 1: Being Objective: Re-Examining Objects in SQL Server
Technically speaking, you can actually create objects yourself in tempdb — I
strongly recommend against this practice. You can create temporary objects from
within any database you have access to in your system — it will be stored in
tempdb. Creating objects directly in tempdb gains you nothing but adds the
confusion of referring to things across databases. This is another of those ‘‘Don’t go
there!’’ kind of things.
tempdb is dropped and rebuilt from scratch each time you restart your SQL Server.
AdventureWorks/AdventureWorks2008
SQL Server included samples long before these came along. The old samples had their shortcomings
though. For example, they contained a few poor design practices. (I’ll hold off the argument of whether
the AdventureWorks databases have the same issue or not. Let’s just say that AdventureWorks was,
among other things, an attempt to address this problem.) In addition, they were simplistic and focused
on demonstrating certain database concepts rather than on SQL Server as a product or even databases as
awhole.
From the earliest stages of development of Yukon (the internal code name for what we look back on
today as SQL Server 2005) Microsoft knew they wanted a far more robust sample database that would
actasasampleforasmuchoftheproductaspossible. AdventureWorks is the outcome of that effort.
As much as you will hear me complain about its overly complex nature for the beginning user, it is a
masterpiece in that it shows it all off. Okay, so it’s not really everything, but it is a fairly complete sample,
with more realistic volumes of data, complex structures, and sections that show samples for the vast
majority of product features. In this sense, it’s truly terrific. AdventureWorks2008 is the natural evolution
of the original AdventureWorks database in the sense that it alters and extends the model to make use of
features that are new with SQL Server 2008.
I use AdventureWorks2008 as the core sample database for this book.
AdventureWorksLT/AdventureWorksLT2008
The LT in this stands for lite. This is just an extremely small subset of the full AdventureWorks database.
The idea is to provide a simpler sample set for easier training of basic concepts and simple training.
While I’ve not been privy to the exact reasoning behind this new sample set, my suspicion was that it is
an effort to try and kill the older Northwind and Pubs sample sets, which have been preferred by many
trainers over the newer AdventureWorks set, as the AdventureWorks database is often far too complex
and cumbersome for early training. However, I’ve recently heard that there are plans for some updating
and additional development to the Northwind sample, so perhaps they aren’t ready to totally kill that
one off after all.
AdventureWorksDW/AdventureWorksDW2008
This is the Analysis Services sample. (The DW stands for data warehouse, which is the type of database
over which most Analysis Services projects will be built.) Perhaps the greatest thing about it is that
Microsoft had the foresight to tie the transaction database sample with the analysis sample, providing a
whole set of samples that show the two of them working together.
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