Overview

Your Data, Any Place, Any Time

SQL Server 2008 delivers on Microsoft’s Data Platform vision by helping your organization manage any data, any place, any time. It enables you to store data from structured, semi-structured, and unstructured documents, such as images and music, directly within the database. SQL Server 2008 delivers a rich set of integrated services that enable you to do more with your data such as query, search, synchronize, report, and analyze. Your data can be stored and accessed in your largest servers within the data center all the way down to desktops and mobile devices, enabling you to have control over your data no matter where it is stored.

SQL Server 2008 enables you to consume your data within custom applications developed using Microsoft .NET and Visual Studio and within your service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process through Microsoft BizTalk Server while information workers can access data directly in the tools they use every day, such as the 2007 Microsoft Office system. SQL Server 2008 delivers a trusted, productive, and intelligent data platform for all your data needs.

SQL Server 2008 New Features

Click image to enlarge

TRUSTED

SQL Server provides the highest levels of security, reliability, and scalability for your business-critical applications.

Protect valuable information

Ensure business continuity

Enable predictable response

PRODUCTIVE

To take advantage of new opportunities in today's fast-moving business world, companies need the ability to create and deploy data-driven solutions quickly. SQL Server 2008 reduces time and cost of management and development of applications.

Manage by policies

Simplify application development

Store any information

DATE/TIME
SQL Server 2008 introduces new date and time data types:
- DATE—A date-only type
- TIME—A time-only type
- DATETIMEOFFSET—A time-zone-aware datetime type
- DATETIME2—A datetime type with larger fractional seconds and year range than the existing DATETIME type
The new data types enable applications to have separate data and time types while providing large data ranges or user defined precision for time values.
HIERARCHY ID
Enable database applications to model tree structures in a more efficient way than currently possible. New system type HierarchyId can store values that represent nodes in a hierarchy tree. This new type will be implemented as a CLR UDT, and will expose several efficient and useful built-in methods for creating and operating on hierarchy nodes with a flexible programming model.
FILESTREAM Data
Allow large binary data to be stored directly in an NTFS file system, while preserving an integral part of the database and maintaining transactional consistency. Enable the scale-out of large binary data traditionally managed by the database to be stored outside the database on more cost-effective storage without compromise.
Integrated Full Text Search
Integrated Full Text Search makes the transition between Text Search and relational data seamless, while enabling users to use the Text Indexes to perform high-speed text searches on large text columns.
Sparse Columns
NULL data consumes no physical space, providing a highly efficient way of managing empty data in a database. For example, Sparse Columns allows object models that typically have numerous null values to be stored in a SQL Server 2005 database without experiencing large space costs.
Large User-Defined Types
SQL Server 2008 eliminates the 8-KB limit for User-Defined Types (UDTs), allowing users to dramatically expand the size of their UDTs.
Spatial Data Types
Build spatial capabilities into your applications by using the support for spatial data.
- Implement Round Earth solutions with the geography data type. Use latitude and longitude coordinates to define areas on the Earth's surface.
- Implement Flat Earth solutions with the geometry data type. Store polygons, points, and lines that are associated with projected planar surfaces and naturally planar data, such as interior spaces.
  
  > Learn more about SQL Server 2008 Programmability and Spatial Data

INTELLIGENT

SQL Server 2008 provides a comprehensive platform, delivering intelligence where your users want it.

Integrate any data

Backup Compression
Keeping disk-based backups online is expensive and time-consuming. With SQL Server 2008 backup compression, less storage is required to keep backups online, and backups run significantly faster since less disk I/O is required.
Partitioned Table Parallelism
Partitions enable organizations to manage large growing tables more effectively by transparently breaking them into manageable blocks of data. SQL Server 2008 builds on the advances of partitioning in SQL Server 2005 by improving the performance on large partitioned tables.
Star Join Query Optimizations
SQL Server 2008 provides improved query performance for common data warehouse scenarios. Star Join Query optimizations reduce query response time by recognizing data warehouse join patterns.
Grouping Sets
Grouping Sets is an extension to the GROUP BY clause that lets users define multiple groupings in the same query. Grouping Sets produces a single result set that is equivalent to a UNION ALL of differently grouped rows, making aggregation querying and reporting easier and faster.
Change Data Capture
With Change Data Capture, changes are captured and placed in change tables. It captures complete content of changes, maintains cross-table consistency, and even works across schema changes. This enables organizations to integrate the latest information into the data warehouse.
MERGE SQL Statement
With the introduction of the MERGE SQL Statement, developers can more effectively handle common data warehousing scenarios, like checking whether a row exists, and then executing an insert or update.
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) Pipeline Improvements
Data Integration packages can now scale more effectively, making use of available resources and managing the largest enterprise-scale workloads. The new design improves the scalability of runtime into multiple processors.
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) Persistent Lookups
The need to perform lookups is one of the most common ETL operations. This is especially prevalent in data warehousing, where fact records need to use lookups to transform business keys to their corresponding surrogates. SSIS increases the performance of lookups to support the largest tables.

> Learn more about SQL Server 2008 Integration Services and Data Warehousing

Deliver relevant information

Drive actionable insights

Enterprise Reporting Engine
Reports can easily be delivered throughout the organization, both internally and externally, with simplified deployment and configuration. This enables users to easily create and share reports of any size and complexity.
Internet Report Deployment
Customers and suppliers can effortlessly be reached by deploying reports over the Internet.
Manage Reporting Infrastructure
Increase supportability and the ability to control server behavior with memory management, infrastructure consolidation, and easier configuration through a centralized store and API for all configuration settings.
Report Builder Enhancements
Easily build ad-hoc and author reports with any structure through Report Designer.
Built-In Forms Authentication
Built-in forms authentication enables users to easily switch between Windows and Forms.
Report Server Application Embedding
Report Server application embedding enables the URLs in reports and subscriptions to point back to front-end applications.
Microsoft Office Integration
SQL Server 2008 provides new Word rendering that enables users to consume reports directly from within Microsoft Office Word. In addition, the existing Excel renderer has been greatly enhanced to accommodate the support of features, like nested data regions, sub-reports, as well as merged cell improvements. This lets users maintain layout fidelity and improves the overall consumption of reports from Microsoft Office applications.
Predictive Analysis
SQL Server Analysis Services continues to deliver advanced data mining technologies. Better Time Series support extends forecasting capabilities. Enhanced Mining Structures deliver more flexibility to perform focused analysis through filtering as well as to deliver complete information in reports beyond the scope of the mining model. New cross-validation enables confirmation of both accuracy and stability for results that you can trust. Furthermore, the new features delivered with SQL Server 2008 Data Mining Add-ins for Office 2007 empower every user in the organization with even more actionable insight at the desktop.

> Learn more about SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services and Data Mining

Take a closer look