Microsoft Brings Business Intelligence Deep to Enterprise With SQL Server 2008 R2

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sql server 2008 r2 h blMicrosoft Corp. today announced the release to manufacturing of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, the industry’s most complete information platform for managing, accessing and delivering information. SQL Server 2008 R2 will be available to customers in early May through Microsoft’s distribution and partner channels.

More than 2,000 global ISVs have indicated their plans to build solutions based on SQL Server 2008 R2.

Ted Kummert, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Business Platform Division said,  “The release of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 represents a big step forward in transforming how IT departments, developers and end users interact with and gain insight and intelligence on information in the digital economy.”

For more information about the business case about SQL Server 2008 R2, see Microsoft Brings Business Intelligence Deep Into the Enterprise With SQL Server 2008 R2.

Launch Events Worldwide

To celebrate the release, Microsoft, in collaboration with the Professional Association for SQL Server, will host more than 85 live launch events worldwide. For customers and partners who cannot attend a live event, Microsoft is offering a SQL Server 2008 R2 Digital Tour online at https://www.sqlserverlaunch.com.

Key Features

Key enhancements in this release include the following:

  • Managed self-service business intelligence (BI) for reporting and analysis
  • Enterprise-class scalability and greater IT efficiency
  • Platform integration spanning the datacenter to the cloud
Managed Self-Service Business Intelligence for Reporting and Analysis

With the release of SQL Server 2008 R2, Microsoft is introducing powerful new managed self-service BI capabilities, bridging the gap between IT professionals and end users by leveraging familiar tools such as Microsoft Excel 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. With the new BI technology named PowerPivot, end users can bring data from virtually anywhere and manipulate large datasets with ease while still enabling IT to monitor and manage user-generated BI solutions.

Enterprise-Class Scalability and Greater IT Efficiency

With this release Microsoft continues to focus on critical datacenter needs, enabling businesses to create a highly available infrastructure that is more secure and easier to manage. Recent benchmarks show that SQL Server 2008 R2 has raised the bar in performance on industry-standard hardware. With the introduction of SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter edition, in combination with Windows Server 2008 R2, customers can now run databases on systems with up to 256 logical processors, and move to a virtualized datacenter with Hyper-V and Live Migration support. These two releases will help customers move to a private cloud infrastructure that is highly available, consolidated and virtualized and that scales on demand.

Additional key enhancements in this release include two new components of Microsoft’s information platform:

SQL Server 2008 R2 Master Data Services helps customers drive better data consistency across heterogeneous systems

SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight supports high-scale complex event-stream processing.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse scale-out their data warehouses from tens to hundreds of terabytes. SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse will be offered as an appliance in several configurations through select hardware providers.

Platform IntegrationSpanning the Datacenter to the Cloud

SQL Server 2008 R2 also represents a further commitment from Microsoft to the cloud. The power of SQL Server is extending to the cloud through Microsoft SQL Azure, which provides a consistent programming model, common capabilities and tools while offering new business opportunities, high availability, self-management and massive scale through distributed cloud data services. Microsoft’s recent preview release of the service code-named “Dallas” enables customers to have access to rich new datasets from companies such as Pitney Bowes Inc., NASA and the Associated Press Online. With the capabilities in PowerPivot for Excel, combining private and public datasets for deeper analysis and business insight is much easier. SQL Server 2008 R2 delivers a complete approach to managing, accessing and delivering information across the organization.

Getting Started

Developer Training Kit

SQL Server 2008 R2 offers an impressive array of capabilities for developers that build upon key innovations introduced in SQL Server 2008. The SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Training Kit is ideal for developers who want to understand how to take advantage of the key improvements introduced in SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 in their applications, as well as for developers who are new to SQL Server. The training kit is brought to you by Microsoft Developer and Platform Evangelism.

Get the training kit from SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Training Kit (April 2010 Update).

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Training Course

Online version of the developer training kit where you can try out the features online without big installs.

The goal of the SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Training Course is to provide information about the improvements introduced in SQL Server 2008 and the new features added in SQL Server 2008 R2. Its primary audience is solution architects and developers who are familiar with SQL Server, and also developers who are new to SQL Server and want to learn the basics. The content focuses on development aspects and illustrates how to design more effective database applications that take advantage of improved capabilities in SQL Server. This version of the training course is designed to work best with the SQL Server 2008 R2 November Community Technology Preview.

See Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Training Course.

On Demand Developer Videos

See these on-demand videos from MSDEV. The SQL Server 2008 R2 Series will walk you through the new features of SQL Server 2008 R2. Topics included: Report Builder 3.0, building your ISV ETL application, ISV Operational application, looking at what R2 edition is right for you and more.

Get Trial Version

Download Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2. Registration required.

For More Information

Microsoft Resources

Other Resources

Bruce D. KyleISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation

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