Microsoft SQL Server 1992... almost

Sometimes it's fun to browse the promotional material for Other People's Products, just to see what's coming, and sometimes, just to see what they are finally getting around to implementing.

Or, in the case of Denali's "new" Partially Contained Databases, what they are partially implementing:

---

A contained database is a concept in which a database includes all the settings and metadata required to define the database and has no configuration dependencies on the instance of the SQL Server Database Engine where the database is installed. Users connect to the database without authenticating a login at the Database Engine level. Isolating the database from the Database Engine makes it possible to easily move the database to another instance of SQL Server. Including all the database settings in the database enables database owners to manage all the configuration settings for the database.

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Release Candidate 0 (RC 0) includes a first step toward contained databases, introducing partially contained databases (also known as Partial-CDB). Partially Contained Databases provide some isolation from the instance of SQL Server but do not yet provide full containment.

---

Did you notice that? "Isolating the database from the Database Engine makes it possible to easily move the database to another instance of SQL Server."

Just like SQL Anywhere, which has isolated the database from the server since... well, forever... at least as far back as SQL Anywhere 5.5 in 1992...

dbeng50w [engine-switches][database-file [database-switches], ...]

The separation of database from server is such a fundamental characteristic of SQL Anywhere that the docs don't talk about it, not even in the Hallmarks of SQL Anywhere 12.

Gosh, what's next for SQL Server?

Self-management?

Binary portability of the database file?

Linux?

---