Microsoft releases SQL Server 2008 to manufacturing

Microsoft says its new database and business intelligence platform provides new capabilities, such as support for policy-based management, auditing, large-scale data warehousing and advanced reporting and analysis services. “Microsoft developed this release with the customer in mind,” intones Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of the Data and Storage Platform Division at Microsoft. “SQL Server 2008 is the only major database that includes comprehensive, tightly integrated functionality for data management, as well as advanced business intelligence out of the box.” It certainly should be a safe bet. With more than 450,000 customer and partner downloads of SQL Server 2008’s community technology previews, more than 75 large-scale applications already in production and more than 1,350 applications being developed by nearly 1,000 ISVs, the market has already given it the thumbs up. As Forrester Research analyst Noel Yuhanna wrote in a Forrester Wave report in January this year: “Microsoft is [one of] the only vendors with top enterprise search and business intelligence reporting capabilities. It offers strong support for aggregation, summarisation, search engine and dashboards. Transactions across distributed data sources and long-running transactions are also strengths for Microsoft.” And just looking at one major performance parameter, Unisys and Microsoft set a new ETL (extract, transform and load) performance record by loading 1 Terabyte of data in less than 30 minutes using SQL Server 2008 Integration Services. Microsoft is also setting additional benchmark records with ISV solutions, including a world record on four-socket industry-standard blade servers in a three-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) standard application benchmark. It also claims to have demonstrated the best benchmark ever on Siemens Teamcenter digital product lifecycle management solution, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP and the Camstar MES (manufacturing execution system). SQL Server 2008 is available now to MSDN and TechNet subscribers and is ready for evaluation download today.