Databases are increasingly used by applications and along with the data explosion, this had led to a proliferation of databases and additional complexity for database administrators (DBAs) as they try to manage the growing numbers of databases created by application developers. This increase in applications and SQL Server instances, combined with low-cost/high-storage hardware, has led to server sprawl across the organization with hundreds of servers at less than 2Gb utilization. Application and multi-server management provides the DBA with the tools necessary to gain centralized insights into instance and database application utilization as well as a better way to develop, deploy, and manage data-tier applications.
(Extraído e adaptado de: http://technet.microsoft.com/ en-us/sqlserver/bb671430.aspx, SQL Server 2008 R2, Application and Multi-Server Management)
O texto informa que uma consequência do aumento de aplicações que utilizam banco de dados e da existência de hardware com baixo custo e alta capacidade de armazenamento foi