Professional SQL Server™ 2005 Programming

Chapter 9. Views

Up to this point, we've been dealing with base objects — objects that have some level of substance of their own. In contrast, this chapter goes virtual (well, mostly) to take a look at views.

Since we're assuming, in this book, that you already know something about SQL Server, I am, as I have in most of the previous chapters, going to rip through the basic part of views in more of a review approach. We will, however, be introducing some more advanced concepts — particularly in the area of partitioned and index views.

Views have a tendency to be used either too much, or not enough — rarely just right. When we're done with this chapter, you should be able to use views to:

• Reduce apparent database complexity for end users

• Prevent sensitive columns from being selected, while still affording access to other important data

• Add additional indexing to your database to speed query performance — even when you're not using the view the index is based on

• Understand and utilize the notion of partitioned tables and the early stages of federated servers (often used for very high-end scalability)

A view is, at its core, really nothing more than a stored query. You can create a simple query that selects from only one table and leaves some columns out, or you can create a complex query that joins several tables and makes them appear as one.