Indexed Views were introduced in SQL Server 2000 as an Enterprise Edition feature. The confusion arose in SQL Server 2005 when it appeared that all editions supported Indexed Views.

Why are there INFOMATION_SCHEMA and catalog views in SQL Server that do very similar things? For example, to retrieve a list of tables in a database, I can do it via sys.tables or INFORMATION ...

Peter steals another tip from a reader: Entity Framework isn't just for tables and stored procedures. Leveraging SQL Server views can simplify your code.