SQL Server 2000 has been an established platform for database development for more than 5 years. SQL Server 2005 has a number of major benefits:

• Up to 35% faster transaction processing, including improved response times on queries
• Higher availability (99.999%) for mission critical applications and five times faster failover.
• Improved reporting capabilities that allow business decision makers access to information when they need it as well as create their own ad hoc reports in multiple formats.
• Stronger security with larger databases.
• New ad hoc reporting with Report Builder combined with enhanced enterprise reporting
• Expanded data mining capabilities with five new algorithms
• Enhanced business productivity through tighter integration with Microsoft Office.

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/default.mspx

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Web services are revolutionizing how applications talk to other applications-or, more broadly, how computers talk to other computers-by providing a universal data format that lets data be easily adapted or transformed. Based on XML, the universal language of Internet data exchange, Web services can communicate across platforms and operating systems, regardless of the programming language in which the applications are written.

Each Web service is a discrete unit of code that handles a limited set of tasks. However, although Web services remain independent of each other, they can loosely link themselves into a collaborating group that performs a particular task.

Benefits of Web Services

The architecture of eTarget® is based on the Microsoft .Net framework. One of the fundamental building block of .Net is Web Services.

By enabling applications to share data across different hardware platforms and operating systems, Web services provide many benefits, including:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/archive/default.asp?url=/archive/en-us/dnarxml/html/websvcs_platform.asp

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