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Best SQL Server products of 2005
SearchSQLServer.com staff
Last year Microsoft rejoiced as it finally released SQL Server 2005, helping to put the software giant in direct competition with Oracle and IBM whose databases have traditionally handled bigger, more complex demands. Although the new DBMS offers a slew of enhancements that would raise the eyebrows of even the hardest-to-please DBAs and developers -- from 64-bit processing to a common language runtime environment -- it has not yet been fully received by the market. Instead, third-party vendors continue to help SQL Server pros work more efficiently in SQL Server 2000 environments, offering everything from improved backup and recovery and data encryption measures to high-resolution reporting and keystroke tricks.
To make your lives easier and help you evaluate the products released, the editors of SearchSQLServer.com sat down this past fall to assess the 2005 crop of products. The goal is to help you choose products you should include on your "A" list for evaluation.
As in the past, following criteria were used when evaluating the products:
- Innovation
- Performance
- Ease of integration into environment
- Ease of use and manageability
- Functionality
- Value
We solicited nominations from vendors, scoured the market for our own nominations and recruited a panel of judges composed of independent industry experts, SQL Server professionals and SearchSQLServer.com editors. They reviewed a variety of products for the General Database Utilities category. The results are presented within.
While these products may not be perfect for your SQL Server shop, we think you'll agree that they all have valuable attributes, and, when matched to the right task in the right environment, advance the state of the art in SQL Server-based computing.
 How we selected the winners
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