The Art of SQL Server FILESTREAM - Red Gate Software

Chapter 1: Storing and Managing Unstructured Data• Point-in-time restores – With FILESTREAM enabled, changes to the BLOB data in thefile system are captured in the transaction log, and the log can be backed up, enablingDBAs to restore all the data to a state as of a specific date and time.• Improved security management – Permissions can be granted or denied on aFILESTREAM column just as for any other SQL Server columns.There are also a few limitations arising from the use of FILESTREAM. For example,database mirroring does not support FILESTREAM data; Transparent Data Encryption(TDE) does not work with FILESTREAM data; and database snapshots cannot be createdfor FILESTREAM filegroups. These limitations are discussed further in Chapter 10, and onBooks Online (http://brurl.com/fs3).A first look at FILESTREAMChapter 2 goes into much greater depth on how FILESTREAM works, how to create newdatabases and tables that can store FILESTREAM data, how to insert, update, and deleteFILESTREAM data, and so on.However, to whet your appetite, we'll walk through a very simple example here of how tostart using FILESTREAM on an existing SQL Server instance, covering:• enabling the FILESTREAM feature for a given SQL Server instance• setting the access level for the FILESTREAM data• adding FILESTREAM storage to an existing database• adding a FILESTREAM column to an existing table• inserting BLOB data into the FILESTREAM column.39