Tutorial: SQL Server Management Studio

The SQL Server Management Studio tutorial introduces you to the integrated environment for managing your SQL Server infrastructure. SQL Server Management Studio presents a graphical interface for configuring, monitoring, and administering instances of SQL Server. It also allows you to deploy, monitor, and upgrade the data-tier components used by your applications, such as databases and data warehouses. SQL Server Management Studio also provides Transact-SQL, MDX, DMX, and XML language editors for editing and debugging scripts.

What You Will Learn

This tutorial will help you understand the presentation of information in Management Studio and how to take advantage of the features. Note that this tutorial applies to the complete installation of Management Studio that is included with all editions of SQL Server except SQL Server Express. Functionality for basic installations of Management Studio and for Management Studio installations that ship with SQL Server Express is slightly different than what is presented in this tutorial.

The best way to get acquainted with Management Studio is through hands-on practice. This tutorial will teach you how to manage the components of Management Studio and how to find the features that you use regularly.

This tutorial is divided into four lessons:

Requirements

This tutorial is intended for experienced database administrators and database developers who are not familiar with Visual Studio, but who are who are familiar with database concepts and the Transact-SQL language.

Your system must have the following installed to use this tutorial:

  • SQL Server 2012 or a later version with the AdventureWorks2012 sample databases. To enhance security, the sample databases are not installed by default. To install the sample databases, see Installing SQL Server Samples and Sample Databases.

  • Internet Explorer 9.0 or later.

See Also

Concepts

Database Engine Tutorials