Chapter 10. Inside Email Tools

Two principal email solutions ship with SQL Server 2005: the legacy component previously shipped with SQL Server 2000 (SQL Mail) and a newly developed mailing solution (Database Mail). The two solutions are completely different, have different architectures, and utilize different underlying mail delivery protocols. SQL Mail uses Extended MAPI, whereas Database Mail utilizes SMTP. This chapter talks first about SQL Mail and then Database mail, describing each solution separately and highlighting critical differences along the way.

SQL Agent also has its own mailing capabilities, but these are used only for sending out notifications and cannot be used directly by external clients. However, for completeness we cover SQL Agent Mail as well as the other two email solutions in this chapter. We begin with SQL Mail, move on to Database Mail, and finish with SQL Agent Mail.