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The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 data platform complements and builds on the foundations provided by Windows Server to provide a highly scalable and mission-critical platform. Windows Server provides the core infrastructure which SQL Server uses for virtualization, advanced management, availability, performance, and security.
Support for up to 256 Logical Processors
Support for Live Migration
Virtualization enhancement such as clustering support, networking performance, memory management
Support for Sysprep
Reduced power consumption with core parking
Improved PowerShell
Improved web platform
>64 Logical Processors – Grow with your business and scale up as required with support for up to 256 logical processors
Failover Clustering – Meet the availability needs of your business with SQL Server failover clustering built on top of Windows failover cluster
Live Migration – Improve availability of your virtualized database servers with SQL Server 2008 R2 support for Hyper-V live migration
Policy-Based Management– Benefit from proactive policy management using policy-based management on SQL Server and group policies on Windows Server
PowerShell Management – Use PowerShell to simplify, automate, and consolidate server management processes across a distributed SQL Server environment
Hot add CPU, Memory, and Storage – Upgrade your hardware while ensuring business continuity with SQL Server hot add hardware features built on Windows Server
Windows System Resource Manager – Take advantage of SQL Server resource governor and Windows system resource manager to meet your SLAs
Security Integration – Build secure applications that are easy to manage with the choice and flexibility of different authentication and authorization options
IIS and ASP.Net support – Develop your applications faster and easier with a fully integrated web application development platform
Enterprise class scalability and performance at an unmatched TCO
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Large Partition Table
Scale your tables with a single partition in excess of 2TB with the SQL Server support for Windows globally unique identifier partition table (GPT) disks
Network Performance
Benefit from better performance for replications with networking improvements
Performance Management
Track reliability issues, monitor performance, and identify performance bottlenecks with monitoring and diagnostic tools such as Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor
Use SQL Server monitoring capabilities such as Performance Data Collector for fine-grained database server monitoring and troubleshooting
Use SQL Server Management Studio to manage collection tasks, such as enabling the data collector, starting a collection set, and viewing system collection reports
Build your own performance management utilities based on Performance Data Collector using system-stored procedures and the Performance Data Collector application programming interface
Meet your SLAs and achieve predictable performance with Resource Governor and Windows system resource manager (WSRM)
>64 Logical Processors
Meet the needs of your very large mission-critical databases with support for up to 256 logical processors
Industry-Leading Benchmarks
Deploy with the confidence of performance validation using industry-leading TPC-E (OLTP) and TPC-H (DW) benchmarks
Related Links
What's new in SQL Server 2008
SQL Server 2008 Performance and Scalability
Deep Dive
Managing SQL Server Workloads with Resource Governor
Monitoring and Tuning for Performance
Performance Monitoring and Troubleshooting Using Management Studio
Reduce planned and unplanned downtime to increase the availability of your business-critical applications
Hot add CPU and Memory
Upgrade your hardware online with support for hot add CPU and memory built on Windows Server support for dynamic hardware portioning
Failover Clustering
Protect against unplanned downtime with SQL Server failover clustering built on Windows Failover Cluster
Benefit from simplified cluster setup and management. Use the wizard-based cluster validation tool to easily verify the suitability of your hardware
Get higher availability, reduced TCO, and lower manageability with support for up to 16 nodes in a cluster
Protect your application from site failures with SQL Server multi-site failover cluster support using stretched VLAN built on Windows Server support for multi-site clusters
SQL Server 2008 Availability
Automatic Page Repair During a Database Mirroring Session
Getting Started with SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering
SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering White Paper
Hot Add CPU
Protect your database through enhanced security features
Data Encryption
Encrypt your database connections and protect your enterprise data over the network with support for IP security (IPSec)
Protect your enterprise data in the storage and backups with SQL Server Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) that requires no changes to the application
Use TDE in combination with certificates based on hardware modules for increased security
Enhance protection of your data with encryption at the operating system level using Windows Server Bitlocker
Authentication and Authorization
Secure access to your data with strong integrated authentication and authorization mechanisms such as smart cards, biometrics, and userid-based authentications
Consolidate and centralize security credentials with integration of SQL Server with Windows active directory services
Manage better with enhancements such as Active Directory certificate service that makes it easier to control enrollment of smart cards
SQL Server 2008 Security
Database Encryption in SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
Benefit from key industry innovations and technology trends with full support for virtualization
Integrated Server Virtualization
Benefit from a virtual database infrastructure with full support for Hyper-V, including guest and host clustering
Reduce workforce/space/kilowatt by consolidating multiple, underutilized physical servers on a single host, running Virtual Machines
Increased availability of servers with enhancements such as Live Migration
Benefit from improved virtual networking performance
Manage better with integration of PowerShell and System Center
Deploy easily with Sysprep and VHD files
SQL Server 2008 Virtualization
SQL Server 2008 in Hyper-V environment: Best practices
Server Consolidation: Green IT in practice
Sustainability Technical White Paper
Cutting Costs and Building Value with Microsoft Virtualization
Reduce your total cost of ownership and simplify management of your complex infrastructure
Proactive Management
Reduce your management overheads with the creation and enforcement of standardized policies using policy-based management from SQL Server and group policies from Windows Server
Administration
Use one consistent Windows server manager interface to easily install, configure, and manage different features and roles in Window Server
Use one consistent SQL Server Management Studio interface for managing all SQL Server components
Use SQL Server Management Studio on a configuration server, to manage a group of SQL Server databases as a single unit
Scripting and Command-Line Administration
Automate, batch, and sequence administrative tasks across one or multiple servers with Windows Server PowerShell
Create sophisticated management utilities that can simplify multi-server administration using PowerShell scripts that use the Microsoft .NET Framework
SQL Server 2008 Manageability
Administering Servers by Using Policy-Based Management
Administering Multiple Servers Using Central Management Servers
Meet your compliance and auditing needs
Auditing
Meet your compliance requirements with all actions audited functionality from SQL Server and its integration with Windows application and security log
Control the granularity of the logs with options to track at the operating system level or at an individual table level
Use the event forwarding capabilities to centralize reporting of your audits
Configure and enforce policies using group policy on Windows servers and policy-based management on SQL Server
SQL Server 2008 Compliance
Hardware and Software Requirements for Installing SQL Server 2008
Compliance Guide for SQL Server 2008
Compliance Webcasts
Script section containing code for Liveperson Chat Solution
Microsoft SQL Server
