Features and Tools Overview (SQL Server 2008)

SQL Server contains "studios" to help you with development and management tasks: SQL Server Management Studio and Business Intelligence Development Studio. In Management Studio, you develop and manage SQL Server Database Engine and notification solutions, manage deployed Analysis Services solutions, manage and run Integration Services packages, and manage report servers and Reporting Services reports and report models. In BI Development Studio, you develop business intelligence solutions using Analysis Services projects to develop cubes, dimensions, and mining structures; Reporting Services projects to create reports; the Report Model project to define models for reports; and Integration Services projects to create packages.

SQL Server Profiler is a tool that captures SQL Server events from a server. The events are saved in a trace file that can later be analyzed or used to replay a specific series of steps when trying to diagnose a problem.

SQL Server Configuration Manager is a tool to manage the services associated with SQL Server, to configure the network protocols used by SQL Server, and to manage the network connectivity configuration from SQL Server client computers.

SQL Server Database Engine Tuning Advisor helps you select and create an optimal set of indexes, indexed views, and partitions without requiring an expert understanding of the structure of the database or the internals of SQL Server.

SQL Server provides additional tools that can be run from the command prompt.