At the heart of any business application is its data. Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 not only provides a secure, reliable, scalable way to store your data, but it also provides powerful analysis and reporting tools. Developers can quickly integrate SQL Server into their applications from Microsoft® Visual Studio®, Microsoft® SharePoint® Server, and Microsoft® BizTalk® Server. SQL Server even has a Web edition that makes it easy and cost-effective to build Web applications.

A Trusted, Scalable Platform

SQL Server provides built-in security, availability and scale for discerning businesses to run their critical workloads. With globally recognized security certifications, Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)and Payment Card Industry (PCI),top-ranking price-performance benchmarks, and large-scale customers, SQL Server is a third party-verified database on which you can bet your business.

IT & Developer Efficiency

SQL Server can help reduce storage up to 90%, reduce hardware and licensing costs through virtualization and consolidation up to 50%, and save up to $100k in 3rd party software through expansive built-in tools. When compared to Oracle® 11g, SQL Server® delivers a 460% total cost of administration saving.

Managed Self-Service Business Intelligence

With built-in reporting and analytics and now PowerPivot for Excel that enables managed self-service Business Intelligence (BI), SQL Server 2008 R2 makes it easy for organizations to tap into the power of their data. Only SQL Server enables reporting and analytics collaboration across the enterprise through SharePoint integration with powerful tools that offer dynamic refreshable access to data.

If you prefer to have your data in the cloud, Microsoft SQL Azure is a full relational database for cloud computing. It provides a highly available, scalable, multi-tenant database service hosted by Microsoft. 

Learn more about the latest edition, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2. and the future edition SQL Server code-named "Denali".