As a software professional i would attend some technical interviews with some reputed companies for their open positions. Most of them asked me What is the differenced between SQL 2000 and 2005 . Since i have worked on all SQLversions from SQL Server 7.0/2000 to 2008 r2, I felt just like our human race is evolving, SQL Server is also evolving. Each release will meet with exact requirement of the industry it was born. When SQL Server has evoled from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005, this was the major difference we felt, in a quick summary in tabular format. Feature SQL Server 2000 SQL Server 2005 Security Owner = Schema, hard to remove old users at times Schema is separate. Better granularity in easily controlling security. Logins can be authenticated by certificates. Encryption No options built in, expensive third party options with proprietary skills required to implement properly. Encryption and key management build in. High Availability Clustering or Log Shipping...