XML (eXtensible Markup Language) has emerged as one of the most important Internet technologies. XML's flexible text-based structure enables it to be used for an incredibly wide array of network tasks, including data/document transfer, Web page rendering and even a transport for interapplication remote procedure calls (RPC) via SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol).
This chapter from the book Microsoft SQL Server 2005 New Features, by Michael Otey, discusses how SQL Server 2005 provides a new level of unified storage for XML and relational data and explains XML support in the SQL Server 2005 relational database engine. This chapter serves an introduction to the most important new XML features provided by SQL Server 2005.
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