SQL Server 2008 RTM

 

SQL Server 2008was released to manufacturing (RTM) today (see press release).  

You can download it on MSDN Subscriber Downloads and TechNet Subscriber Downloads.  Either search for SQL Server 2008 or navigate under Servers then to SQL Server 2008.

SQL Server 2008 is a big release and includes very significant changes and enhancements in Reporting Services 2008.  Over the next months, you can expect blog postings with drill-downs into particular functionality areas.  For now, you may want to take a closer look at some of the major new functionality areas in Reporting Services 2008:

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  • Improved Report Designer in Business Intelligence Development Studio
     

  • Report Builder 2.0
    Stand-alone report designer; more details about the release plan for Report Builder 2.0 are available in this blog posting.

  • Author reports with any structure, using the unique Tablix grouping and layout capabilities.
     

  • Leverage the enhanced Textbox (aka "RichText") to define mixed formatting within the same textbox.  In addition, HTML strings of text can be imported into the report from a database or other source.
     

  • Enhanced scalability and performance; more details covered in a previous posting.
     

  • Render reports to Microsoft Office Word format.
     

  • SharePoint Integrated Mode
    Integrate Reporting Services with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for central delivery and management of business insight, or run it stand-alone in native mode. 
     

  • Data Visualization
    Gain insight into complex sets of data by displaying data graphically with enhanced visualization capabilities (chart, gauge).
     

  • New on-demand report processing and rendering architecture, including a new RenderingObjectModel.
      

  • New and enhanced data source types (Teradata).
     

  • New memory configuration options in the report server.  Parts of the underlying infrastructure rely on the so-called SQLOS, which has been used by the SQL Server database for several major releases.
     

  • No IIS dependency.  HTTP.SYS, and the CLR including ASP.NET are now directly hosted within the report server.
     

  • New and enhanced Reporting Services Configuration Tool.

Enjoy!