Intended audience: Application developers who are not familiar with designing, implementing or maintaining databases, yet need to create a database for use with their applications.

The links below are external links and provide information and guidance on understanding how to design, create and maintain databases using SQL Server, as well as avoiding common mistakes during database design.

This topic is a how to. Please keep it as clear and simple as possible. Avoid speculative discussions as well as a deep dive into underlying mechanisms or related technologies.

Overview Information

• An Overview of SQL Server 2005 for the Database Developer
• Understanding Databases
• Database Tasks
• Database 2012 Training Kit

Database Design

A well thought out database design will reduce data storage requirements by normalizing data, increase performance through organization and indexing of data, and will generally help you avoid revisiting and redesigning your database multiple times during application development. Ten Common Database Design Mistakes provides a list of ten of the more common design mistakes, as well as the consequences of these mistakes. The other links in this section provide additional resources to help you successfully design the database(s) used by your application.

• Designing Databases
• Implementing Databases
• What good are SQL Server Schemas
• User Schema Separation
• Ten Common Database Design Mistakes

Design Optimization

• Optimizing Databases 
• Tips on Optimizing SQL Server Database Design

Maintenance

• Database Maintenance

Transact-SQL (T-SQL)

T-SQL is the query language used to communicate with, and act upon, the data contained within a SQL Server database. While there are other ways to interact with this data from within an application, such as LINQ, for most interactions with the database you will be required to use T-SQL.

• Tutorial: Writing Transact-SQL Statements
• Querying and Changing Data

Data-Tier Applications (DAC) - SQL Server 2008R2 Only

A data-tier application (DAC) is an entity that contains all of the database and instance objects used by an application. A DAC provides a single unit for authoring, deploying, and managing the data-tier objects instead of having to manage them separately.

• Designing and Implementing Data-Tier Applications
• Deploying Data-Tier Applications
• Managing Data-Tier Applications
• Data-Tier Application Tutorials

Samples

• Microsoft SQL Server Community Projects & Samples
• SQL Server 2005 Samples and Sample Databases
• DAC PowerShell Samples

See Also

• SQL Server Overview
• Introduction to Development with SQL Server

Other Languages

This article is also available in the following languages:

Italian (it-IT)

• Wiki: Come progettare, creare e mantenere un database di SQL Server (it-IT)

Português (pt-BR)

• Wiki: Como projetar, criar e manter um banco de dados SQL Server (pt-BR)

Japanese (ja-JP)

• SQL Server データベースをデザイン、作成、維持するには (ja-JP)

Español

• Cómo diseñar, crear y mantener una base de datos de servidor de SQL (es-ES)