SQL Server Tutorial

This article is a SQL Server Tutorial. If you want to learn how to install and start with SQL Server from 0, this is the place to start. We will teach you to install SQL Server, start your first queries, and explain the basics to start with SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), Data Quality Services (DQS), Master Data Services (MDS) and Azure and more.

How to install SQL Server

There are many installers, versions, and editions. We will explain first what are the editions and then we will talk about the different versions.

SQL Server edition

You have SQL Server Enterprise, Standard, Web, Developer, and Express editions.

The developer edition is a free edition for developers. It includes all the features. The Express edition is free and very limited but can be used in production.

The enterprise edition is a paid full version of SQL Server. The Standard edition has some limitations like the Online index creation and rebuild. For more information about the SQL Server editions, please refer to this link:

Editions and supported features of SQL Server 2019

To install SQL Server on different editions, follow these links:

SQL Server versions

You have SQL Server versions 2014, 2016, and 2017 and as of the time of writing this article, the last official version is 2019. The 2022 version is on the preview version.

To learn, we recommend using the last official 2019 version. However, the main features are similar in all of these versions. If you want to learn the new features in SQL Server 2019, you can read the article below:

SQL Server 2019 overview and installation

To install in earlier versions, refer to these links:

SQL Server Tutorial to learn for Linux

SQL Server is from Microsoft, then Windows is the favorite operating system. However, there is a version in Linux. If you like Linux, you may also be interested in the SQL Server version for Linux, if that is your case, here we have some nice articles that we wrote for you:

SQL Server Tutorial to Install SSMS

Once you installed the SQL Server, you need to install SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). You could also use Azure Data Studio or Visual Studio, but SSMS is recommended because the other ones have some functionality limitations.

In order to install SSMS, please refer to the following article:

SSMS – A FAQ manual

SQL Server Tutorial to install the Adventureworks database

Once you have SQL Server installed and SSMS installed, you need to install the AdventureWorks database. It is not mandatory but strongly recommended if you are learning because you will not need to create tables from scratch. You will be able to use this sample database and check tables, stored procedures, functions, and more.

To install and configure the Adventureworks database, please follow this link:

Install and configure the AdventureWorks2016 sample database

SQL Server Tutorial to learn your first queries

The basis in databases is to learn SQL and then T-SQL. SQL (Structured Query Language) is a standardized programming language to query and manipulate databases. T-SQL is an extension of SQL used in SQL Server.

To start your first queries, you need to learn how to query tables. You will learn how to get data from the tables. The tables are basically a collection of related data which contains columns and rows.

To learn how to query data in SQL Server, please refer to this article:

SQL Queries in SQL Server – a beginner’s guide

SQL Server Tutorial to learn the Data Definition Language (DDL)

DDL is the language to create, drop, and alter database objects. For example, if you need to create a table, you will use the create table statement. For more information about DDL, please refer to this link:

Data Definition Language (DDL)

SQL Server Tutorial to learn the Data Manipulation Language (DML)

DML is used to insert, delete and update data.

For example, you have a table with customers. If you want to add a new customer you will insert a new row with the customer data of the new customer. If you want to delete a customer, you will use the delete command and finally, if you need to update information like a new phone number, you will use the update statement. For more information about the DML, please refer to these links:

Create tables using the UI

If you do not like programming, you could use the UI in SSMS. The following article shows how to use SSMS to create SQL Server tables.

The following article will show you how to create tables in SSMS:

An introduction to SQL tables

SQL Server Tutorial to create stored procedures

You can also create your stored procedures. In SQL Server, the stored procedures are more popular than the functions. They are more flexible to program whatever you want. The following tutorial will teach you how to create your stored procedures from scratch.

Learn SQL: User-Defined Stored Procedures

SQL Server functions

The functions are also very important to handle the data. You have scalar functions that return a single value, inline tables-valued functions that return tables, and multi-statement table-value functions that return a table and the structure of this table can be created by the user.

For more information about these functions, refer to these links:

SQL Server Tutorial to learn SSIS, SSAS, and SSRS

SSIS, SSAS, and SSRS are Business Intelligence tools used to integrate information, create Multidimensional and Tabular models, and finally create reports. The following links provide information about them:

SQL Server Tutorial for Data Quality Services

Data Quality Services are used to correct, enrich, standardize, and de-duplicate data.

The following articles will help you to learn more about DQS:

SQL Server Tutorial for MDS

MDS allows handling the master set of your company’s data. You can organize your information using this service.

For more information about the MDS, refer to this link:

SQL Server Tutorial for Azure

Finally, we have Azure SQL, SQL Server in virtual machines, Azure SQL Managed instances, and Synapse.

Azure SQL is a service of a SQL database in the Microsoft cloud (Azure). The SQL Server in a Virtual Machine in Azure is basically SQL Server installed in a machine in the Microsoft cloud. Finally, the Azure SQL Managed Instance is a virtual SQL Server instance in Azure. Finally, Synapse is a limitless analytics service used for big data and data warehouses. It is a very powerful tool.

For more information about these services, please refer to these links:

Conclusion

In this article, we included a tutorial to learn SQL Server from 0. We started from scratch and then we showed some BI tools and other services. Finally, we talked about Azure which is the Microsoft cloud.

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Daniel Calbimonte

Daniel Calbimonte is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, Microsoft Certified Trainer and Microsoft Certified IT Professional for SQL Server. He is an accomplished SSIS author, teacher at IT Academies and has over 13 years of experience working with different databases.

He has worked for the government, oil companies, web sites, magazines and universities around the world. Daniel also regularly speaks at SQL Servers conferences and blogs. He writes SQL Server training materials for certification exams.

He also helps with translating SQLShack articles to Spanish

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