Chapter 2. Server assessment and configuration
It’s important to start off on the right foot, and that includes figuring out what you’re dealing with. In this chapter, I’ll cover some of the basics of SQL Server architecture, and look at your existing server (or servers) to see what you’ve got. We’ll also dive into the server-level configuration settings, and I’ll explain what the most important ones mean to you.
SQL Server was one of the first products to support what we’d now probably call virtualization. In SQL Server 2000, Microsoft designed the product to support multiple instances. In other words, you can install multiple copies of SQL Server on a single computer, and run them at the same time. Each copy, or instance, is separated from the others. You can even run multiple versions side-by-side on the same computer!
Note
When you install SQL Server, it includes several common components, network access libraries being one of them. If you install multiple versions, these common components will always be the latest version of the product. Normally, that doesn’t cause any problems, but be aware that it’s happening in case something crops up.