Learn
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 provides a secure and trusted data platform on which to efficiently develop and integrate a
broad array of feature-rich solutions to address customers' business imperatives,
business intelligence applications, mobile/Web applications, and server consolidation/compliance needs. Some of the
new features, such as Resource Governor, help customers consolidate their
infrastructure, saving money on hardware, energy, space and staff.
We offer learning and readiness resources designed to help you increase your platform
knowledge, whatever your role. Choose from learning paths for sales and
marketing professionals, technical presales professionals, implementers,
developers, and architects.
Why Upgrade?
New features including Transparent Data Encryption and Data Compression in SQL Server 2008 help you address customer
needs without any code changes to your application!
Same pricing as SQL 2008 & simple licensing makes it compelling for your customers to choose SQL Server 2008!
|
Build a consolidated unified data storage with structured and unstructured data
(document files, XML files, digital images)
|
- FileStream
- XML
- Geo location data
|
|
Regulatory compliance
|
- Audit all actions for greater compliance
- Enforce organizational wide policies with Policy Based Management
- Encrypt data without modifying applications, using Transparent Data Encryption
|
|
Mobile and embedded device apps support for occasionally connected scenarios
|
- Microsoft Synchronization Services for occasionally connected applications
|
|
Significant enhancements for Reporting Service
|
- IIS-agnostic report deployment
- End User Ad-hoc reporting tool (rewritten for end users with Office look-and-feel)
- Enhanced report visualizations in the form of new charts and gauges
- Export Reports to Word and enhanced text enhancements
|
|
Scalability enhancement for total database size and concurrent users
|
- Improved restore times and reduce backup volumes with backup compression
- Partitioned Table Parallelism
|
|
Enhanced performance
|
- TPC-E(NEC): Bests the previous record by 70%
- TPC-E(IBM): 14% performance gain over SQL Server 2005 and Windows Server 2003
|
|
Significant improvement of reduced downtime
|
- Clustering offers the resilience piece
- Stay Always On with hot add CPU and hot add Memory capabilities
|
|
Automated management functions, easy administration overhead
|
- Use Resource Governor to proactively control workload prioritization
- Re-engineered Installation, Setup and Configuration
|
|
Powerful developer tools
|
- Performance studio to troubleshoot, tune and monitor SQL Server across the organization
|
|
Significant improvement of development productivity
|
- Map data structures to business identities with ADO.Net Entity Framework
- Language Integrated Query (LINQ) extensions to C # and VB.Net
|
|
Strong web apps and Interoperability support
|
- Connectivity to non-Microsoft technologies including XML, JDBC, and PHP
|
|
Quick decision-making supporting deeper insight
|
- STAR join queries for faster Data Warehouse queries retrieval
|
|
Provide fresher data for data warehouse and data mart - Significant improvement of data population time
|
- Change Data Capture feature to populate data warehouse or data mart with changed data from operational systems
|
Are you ready to upgrade?
The following Web seminar series discusses different strategies for upgrading applications deployed on SQL Server 2000/SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008.
SQL Server Upgrade (2005 - 2008) Web Seminar Series
SQL Server Upgrade (2000 - 2008) Series
Learn how SQL Server compares to MySQL.
The Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP is a PHP 5 extension that allows reading and writing of SQL Server data
from within PHP scripts. The extension provides a procedural interface for accessing data in all editions (including Express)
of SQL Server. The API makes use of PHP features, including PHP streams, to read and write large objects.
To learn more and participate in discussions, join us at
http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlphp/.
Learn more about SQL Server 2008 from these demos.
See how organizations like yours are using SQL Server 2008 in their environments.