Completed & Integrated Platform

Minimize TCO and maximize return-on-investment for your data platform while providing flexibility and features to meet the challenges of an ever-changing business environment.

Unify physical and virtual infrastructure

• Reduce software acquisition costs with built-in Hyper V, eliminating the need to purchase third-party virtualization software.

• Simplify training and skills requirements by using a single platform.

• Take advantage of enhancements to Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2, including Live Migration, performance improvements, better manageability, and more robust scalability.

Consolidate physical servers

• Cut hardware, data-center, and management costs by consolidating physical servers with accommodating licensing enablement.

• Support more instances on a single server and more databases on each instance.

• Freely move virtual machines from one licensed host server to another without having to purchase additional licenses.

• Maintain high availability with support for failover clustering and database mirroring.

• Balance resource usage more effectively among competing workloads with Windows System Resource Manager and SQL Server Resource Governor.

• Reduce storage requirements and enhance input/output performance with improved data and backup compression.

• Compress UCS-2 Unicode data, providing for languages with large character sets.

Take advantage of built-in features and functionality

• Lower costs by not having to purchase third-party products, as is the case with other database server products.

• Reduce power consumption by automatically powering down CPU cores when workloads are light by using the Core Parking feature in Windows Server 2008 R2.

• Benefit from a comprehensive suite of management tools covering all aspects of database and server management for your infrastructure.

Provide enhanced business intelligence

• Support large-scale data warehouses with Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 R2.

• Build a high-performance data warehouse faster and more easily with Fast Track Reference Architectures from key hardware partners, including HP, Dell, IBM, and Bull.

• Reveal hidden trends and patterns with sophisticated data-mining algorithms.

• Extend business intelligence to the entire organization with new features like PowerPivot for Excel and Report Builder 3.0.

• Enable people to create and share reports and analyses with PowerPivot for SharePoint.

Provide a reliable, secure, and scalable platform for mission-critical applications by running SQL Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 together.

Ensure business continuity and minimize revenue loss

• Protect against unplanned database downtime by deploying failover clustering in SQL Server 2008 R2, made easier with a wizard-based cluster tool in Windows Server 2008 R2.

• Support up to 16 nodes in failover clusters.

• Simplify configuration and management of clustered virtual machines with the new Cluster Shared Volume feature.

• Increase resiliency in virtualized environments with sophisticated failover support for virtual machines and hosts.

• Provide greater protection for mission-critical data with database mirroring in SQL Server 2008 R2.

• Avoid the need for proprietary hardware when mirroring databases, and employ tools for easier set up and management.

• Enable the “hot” addition and replacement of processor and memory without having to restart the server or interrupt service.

• Move virtual machines between host servers without service interruption by using Live Migration.

Protect data with integrated, end-to-end security

• Restrict domain and SQL Server access to valid users and simplify password management with Integrated Windows authentication.

• Encrypt data on physical media with transparent data encryption in SQL Server 2008 R2 and BitLocker drive encryption in Windows Server 2008 R2.

• Secure data transmitted over the network with Internet Protocol security (IPsec) in Windows Server, and limit impact on system resources by specifying the network traffic to be encrypted.

Increase capacity by scaling up

• Enable applications to handle more demanding workloads with higher throughput by using improved hardware support and management features in SQL Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

• Support up to 256 logical processors, memory in excess of 2 TB, and solid-state disks.

• Optimize usage of shared hardware resources among applications with the Resource Governor in SQL Server.

• Improve storage utilization and throughput with data and backup compression in SQL Server.

• Deliver performance in virtual environments that is comparable with that of physical environments.

Ensure regulatory compliance

• Record events for compliance purposes, and archive and view logged events in a central repository.

• Audit all actions on files stored in SQL Server 2008 R2 through database administration tools, the Windows application log, or the Windows Security log.

• Specify the detail needed for audits at the server and database level.

Achiever greater IT productivity, improve service levels, and respond quickly to business needs with troubleshooting and proactive management features in SQL Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Manage proactively

• Easily configure and enforce configuration settings across the enterprise with Policy-Based Management in SQL Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

• Monitor and prevent changes to the system that deviate from desired configurations.

• Scale management across multiple servers in a virtualized environment.

• Check policy compliance as needed or automatically on a scheduled basis.

Take advantage of built-in administrative tools

• Simplify the management and security of multiple server roles across the enterprise with Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Manager.

• Reduce the effort required to configure, manage, and administer all components of SQL Server, and centrally manage multiple SQL Server instances with SQL Server Management Studio.

• Manage multiple servers centrally with Utility Control Points in SQL Server 2008 R2, and easily identify overutilized and underutilized resources.

• Reduce management burdens by managing SQL Server services for multiple instances from a single console.

• Minimize the time required to manage virtual environments with the Hyper-V Management Console.

• Automate server management, manage servers remotely, and manage custom configurations with Windows PowerShell 2.0.

Improve troubleshooting and performance management

• Collect, analyze, troubleshoot, and store SQL Server diagnostics information in the Performance Data Collector.

• Simplify troubleshooting for mission-critical databases with the enhanced monitoring capabilities in the Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor.

• Address performance issues early on by using SQL Server Resource Governor and Windows System Resource Manager to manage processor and memory usage.

• Reduce the time it takes to find poorly performing queries and identify bottlenecks by using SQL Server Profiler.

Make deployments more efficient

• Deploy databases and applications to enterprise environments more quickly by using tools and features in SQL Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

• Build a library of virtual machines ready to deploy with the SQL Server Sysprep utility.

• Use data-tier applications to package the database schema and deployment requirements into a single unit for faster deployments and upgrades.

Develop web applications faster

• Take advantage of the combined features of SQL Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to build cutting-edge solutions faster.

• Gain greater flexibility and control when developing and hosting web applications and services with Internet Information Services 7.5 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.

• Fully support both Microsoft ASP.NET and PHP, providing a unified platform for all web applications.

• Simplify data access development with the Microsoft ADO.NET Entity Framework and LINQ.

• Deliver data to multiple types of devices and build mash-up solutions with the Microsoft Sync Framework and ADO.NET Data Services.

• Benefit from enhancements in the Database Engine in SQL Server 2008 R2, including support for table-valued parameters, native spatial data types, XML formats, and integration of file stream data.