I began with SQL server 4.2, I was working for a small Services Company trying to establish themselves. My Boss was convinced by Microsoft that we should become a Microsoft Dealer and that one of the requirements was to have at least 2 MCSEs. I was fast-tracked into becoming an MCSE in 3 weeks and one of my electives was SQL Server.

My main area of employment was the IBM AS/400 with its integrated database. This is now called the IBM Power System and the database is called DB2 on i.

During this time I had various SQL Server installations to maintain. I actually used 6., 6.5 , 7, 2000.

My current company decided on a Data Warehouse which was implemented on 2000 with DTS. We also hired a real DBA.

Myself and the DBA converted the DTS to SSIS 2005 which was magic at the time. After he left I inherited the DBA Role.

I took the Data warehouse to 2008 then to 2008 R2 where it is now on a Box with lots of Memory, Cores & Disk.

I find SQL Server is now almost as robust as the IBM Power System which is a big call. The 2008 R2 has had only one outage and that was caused my a massive hardware failure ( IBM ).

I find the current SQL Server a joy to work with. My only real beef would be the question of why can't it handle Cursors properly. DB2 doesn't have any of this RBAR nonsense.

David