The simple Content Management System we developed in Chapter 1 suffers from many problems, one of which is the limited storage capabilities provided by the file system. The way to overcome the limitations and problems with file system storage is through the use of a database, so we'll create and use an SQL Server 2005 Express database for this project. There are quite a few ways to create this database, some easy and some less so, but we'll work through a process that would be similar to using any other database server, rather than relying on the development shortcuts found in many ASP.NET tutorials.
We are going to create a database and some initial structure using SQL Server Management Studio Express, instead of using wizards to create a database with a mysterious underlying structure, so that you can learn some ASP.NET techniques for working with data connections. At some point you will need a deeper knowledge of the database...