Dan is a fictional head of an IT department of a government body that's responsible for managing the licensing of vehicles and drivers. It's a huge organisation, working with millions of pieces of information concerning cars, vans, trucks and motorbikes - and the people that own and use them - all across the country. And Dan needs to ensure that any element of this vast array of electronic data is always available immediately for any part of the organisation to use.

With many millions of individual pieces of data, Dan can't rely on standard office database software. Instead, he requires software that can manage information on a much larger scale, but still being as accessible and effective as the smaller applications. The technology he uses is SQL Server 2008, Microsoft's leading relational database management system.

SQL Server is the ideal solution for data warehousing, with massively parallel processing supporting scalability for hundreds of terrabytes of data. Of course, having that much information stored can make managing it appear decidedly daunting; indeed, the frequency with which new data is created and existing records updated can make conventional data mining and analysis difficult - but SQL Server has tools to help Dan through the maze of entries to find exactly what he needs.

If Dan was looking for information in a library, he could find out which book he needs, where the relevant shelf is located, and can go and collect the book; SQL Server allows him to identify the information he wants, and it will be retrieved instantly. No matter how much data is stored, he can still identify what he needs and have it brought straight to him, just as he could find that book in the library. And what's more, SQL Server will do the reading for him, so to speak - the software will extract all the analysis of information that he needs.

And that analysis of information is essential, allowing the organisation to develop a clearer picture of the situation on the roads. Government departments, such as those dealing with transport and the environment, frequently request information about drivers and vehicles to guide policy, and it's vital that Dan can drill deeply into the data to extract whatever is needed. Using the simple, plain-English syntax of Structured Query Language (the SQL in SQL Server), Dan can access any number of records in any database, and the software will return the answers he needs.

SQL Server can easily produce and share multidimensional reports and analyses that illustrate any aspect of the data, clearly indicate relationships between disparate pieces of information, and also provide predictive analyses to better understand where the change will lead the organisation and the country as a whole. What's more, to further enhance the results, and to produce graphics that anyone can immediately understand, Dan can export this information to Microsoft Excel, and make use of the wide range of analytical tools that it offers, such as clear and engaging graphs or at-a-glance conditional formatting.

SQL Server can benefit any organisation with a need to extract information from large amounts of data. For Dan, it provides a means to access and analyse, and from that to greater understand a situation that is key to the nation's transport and wider economy. For your company, it can offer advanced Business Intelligence solutions to greater understand your current situation, and to enhance profitability and market penetration in the future. SQL Server also allows you to define, store and manage Key Performance Indicators for your business, and to access them using familiar Microsoft Office applications.

To make the most of this versatile range of tools and techniques, it's worth considering a training course for you and your staff. SQL Server is a very powerful application, and your business can gain much more benefit from it if you're familiar with the many ways it can transform large amounts of data into information that can be a real boost to your company. And whatever industry, private or public, that your organisation is involved with, it's always a good idea to make sure you're in full control of your data.