There is a common confusion regarding "displayed format" which is related to the client side, and "stored format" which is the way SQL Server stores the data on disk in binary level (zeros and ones).

Let's go briefly over SQL Server internal architecture from the server instance, databases, and files and we'll dive into the internal structure of the file, focusing on the way SQL Server stores data values on disk, in binary level.

who need SQL Server when we can open and read SQL Server Data file using notepad?

In this session, we will explore how SQL Server actually stores the data behind the scene. We will read SQL Server data file directly using simple binary editor (notepad++), and we will explore the structure of several data types. We will focus on exploring how DateTime2 data type is stored, which is probably the most common complex data type structure, and we will discuss other types in general (according to our time). During the demo, we are going to show and use several undocumented tools from different versions of SQL Server.

Understanding the internals gives us the power to get the best decisions, improve performance, and deal with advanced issues like corrupted files.

* This is advance session which focus on undocumented information.