Performance and Scale

Provide predictable performance across workloads by defining resource limits and priorities for workloads with Resource Governor

Gain control of your multiple workload environments by defining workload prioritization, minimize the possibility of runaway queries, and provide mission-critical workloads with the resources they need

Use SQL Server Performance Data Collector to integrate the collection, analysis, troubleshooting, and persistence of SQL Server diagnostics information

Use the low overhead data collector to gather performance data from performance counters, dynamic management views, SQL Trace and other sources

Centralize storage of performance data from across the enterprise in a management data warehouse

Analyze performance data using built-in reports or easily created custom reports

Take advantage of SQL Server 2008 industry-leading performance and scalability for real-world database workloads, as demonstrated by industry-standard Transaction Processing Performance Council benchmarks (posted at www.tpc.org)

Maximize application performance with the SQL Server 2008 high-performance query processing engine

Use table and index partitions to enhance performance

Optimize partitioned tables and indexes by using the results from the Database Tuning Advisor

Results are based on actual query workloads collected by SQL Server Profiler

Take advantage of multi-processor servers with query parallelism

Reduce the size of tables and indexes with data compression

Optimize concurrency while protecting data integrity with configurable transaction isolation levels

Use snapshot isolation to provide statement-level read consistency

Benefit from better concurrency on partitioned tables by controlling lock escalation

Take advantage of partition locking and reduce disk contention by splitting tables and indexes into partitions

Increase performance while allowing users to update cell values with write-back support for MOLAP partitions

Increase the depth of your hierarchies and the complexity of your computations while maintaining high performance with block computations

Use on-demand processing and instance-base rendering to provide optimal performance with the re-engineered Reporting Services engine

Decrease package run times and optimize ETL operations with improved lookup performance

Take full advantage of high-end servers with SQL Server support for 64-bit technologies

Provide greater scalability to your systems with support for non-uniform memory access (NUMA) hardware

Take advantage of NUMA-based computers without application configuration changes

SQL Server supports both hardware NUMA and soft-NUMA

Take advantage of the Hot-Add capabilities of SQL Server 2008 Enterprise to add memory and CPU resources to scale-up a server without stopping database services

Optimize hardware usage by supporting multiple Database Engine instances and Analysis Services instances on a single server

SQL Server 2008 Enterprise supports up to 50 instances on a single Windows Server computer

Create a dedicated read-only reporting database by using the scalable shared database feature

Provide enhanced performance by mounting these read-only databases on multiple reporting servers

All users will receive an identical picture of the data, no matter which reporting server is used

Use peer-to-peer replication to scale out heavily accessed databases and enable users to update multiple copies of the database while maintaining consistency through replication

Reduce the time taken to implement and manage a peer-to-peer replication solution by using the new visual designer to enable applications to read or modify data in any of the databases that are participating in replication

Build applications to more efficiently utilize application cache with the SQL Server ability to notify middle-tier applications when the cache is outdated

Build highly scalable, service-oriented solutions with SQL Server Service Broker

Use Service Broker to handle the routing of partitioned data to multiple databases, services, or instances

Take advantage of the Service Broker inherent ability to support load balancing, forwarding, and gateways to add reliability and better performance to a distributed database

Improve Analysis Services performance by scaling out your solution with a single read-only Analysis Services database shared between multiple instances.