Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Administrators Companion

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Chapter 25

In this chapter, you'll learn about Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC), a product designed to allow multiple data sources to be accessed from the same database transaction in a way that ensures data integrity. As you will see in this chapter, MS DTC has many uses, and many types of applications require the services it provides.

MS DTC is a part of Component Services, a collection of products and technologies included in Microsoft Windows 2000 that have evolved from several Microsoft Windows NT services. Specifically, Component Services is based on Component Object Model (COM) and Distributed COM (DCOM), Microsoft Transaction Server, Microsoft Internet Information Server, and Microsoft Message Queue Server. In Windows 2000 Component Services, the COM and DCOM models have evolved to the next level, COM+. The COM+ applications and other system services make up Windows 2000 Component Services.

Before describing MS DTC in detail, this chapter provides an introduction to the technologies that Component Services comprises. This overview should give you enough information to decide whether you can take advantage of these technologies in your environment.