What's inside a geodatabase in SQL Server?

Geodatabases in SQL Server are composed of tables, views, and stored procedures. The tables contain columns of specific data types. In most cases, the native data types of the database are used. In some cases, though, special data types are used that are specific to spatial data or ArcSDE. These data types are described in the topics in the section "Data types in SQL Server."

Combinations of ArcSDE geodatabase system tables and user-defined tables make up the different ArcGIS dataset types. These are described in the section "Dataset storage in SQL Server."