Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS) that stores and retrieves data for other software applications on the same computer or a remote computer. It uses the client-server model and supports a wide variety of transaction processing, business intelligence (BI), and data analytics applications in corporate IT environments.
SQL Server was originally developed in the 1980s by Sybase Inc., which is now owned by SAP. Microsoft created SQL Server for OS/2 in 1988 as a joint effort between Sybase, Microsoft, and Ashton-Tate. SQL Server can be deployed on an Azure Virtual Machine or other VM platform. You can find SQL Server container images on the Microsoft Container Registry (MCR). SQL Server uses Transact-SQL (T-SQL) for applications and tools to connect to a SQL Server instance or database.
Note: SQL is a query language, while SQL Server is a database management system. SQL is a query language for working with a relational database, while SQL Server is proprietary software that performs SQL queries.
Related topics:
Databases
RDBMS
DBMS
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