This presentation was delivered at one of Intergen's Twilight sessions during 2008. It provides an overview of the new features of Microsoft SQL Server 2008, and is targeted at both business and IT users.

1. SQL Server 2008
Your questions answered…

2. SQL Server 2008
Which boat are you in?
Your developers and IT pros can‟t wait to start using all
the new stuff
Your developers and IT pros aren‟t interested in all the
new stuff
You think it‟s all too new – let‟s just wait for the first
service pack to come out
You don‟t know what to think amongst all the marketing
hype

3. SQL Server 2008
New features in SQL Server 2008
Transparent Data Encryption Visual Studio Support Enterprise Reporting Engine
External Key Management SQL Server Conflict Detection Internet Report Deployment
Data Auditing FILESTREAM data type Block Computations
Pluggable CPU Integrated Full Text Search Scale out Analysis
Transparent Failover for Database Sparse Columns Export to Word and Excel
Mirroring Large User Defined Types Author reports in Word and Excel
Declarative Management Framework Date/Time Data Type Report Builder Enhancements
Server Group Management LOCATION data type TABLIX
Powershell SPATIAL data type Charts and Gauges controls
Streamlined Installation Virtual Earth Integration Rich Formatted Data
Enterprise System Management Partitioned Table Parallelism Personalized Perspectives
Performance Data Collection Query Optimizations … and many more
System Analysis Persistent Lookups
Data Compression Change Data Capture
Query Optimization Modes Backup Compression
Resource Governor MERGE SQL Statement
Entity Data Model Data Profiling
LINQ Star Join
Visual Entity Designer SQL Server Change Tracking
Entity Aware Adapters Transparent Data Encryption
Synchronized Programming Model

4. SQL Server 2008
Platform vision
Enterprise Data Platform Services
Reporting Integration
Analysis Synch
FILE
Beyond Relational Query
RDBMS
XML
OLAP
Search
Dynamic Development
Mobile and
Server Cloud
Desktop
Pervasive Insight

5. SQL Server 2008
What are we looking for?
Trusted
Security, Reliability and Performance
Productive
Developers
IT Pros
Breadth of solutions
Integration Services
Analysis Services
Reporting Services
Synch/Search

6. SQL Server 2008
Trusted
Auditing
Encryption
Compression
Performance
Ensuring Business continuity

7. SQL Server 2008
Auditing
Native DDL for Audit configuration and management
Create an Audit object to automatically log actions to:
File
Windows Application Log
Windows Security Log
Ability to define granular Audit Actions of Users or Roles
on DB objects

8. SQL Server 2008
Native Encryption
Transparent Data Encryption
Encrypts data at rest and within
backups SQL Server 2008
No impact to existing apps
Encryption/decryption performed DEK
at database level
Support for hardware based key
management
Encrypted data page
Client Application

9. SQL Server 2008
Compression
Within database
Row compression
Page compression
Within backups

10. SQL Server 2008
Encryption, Compression and
Auditing

11. SQL Server 2008
Filtered Indexes
Improve query performance and lower storage and
maintenance costs
Of benefit for well known sets of data (<=50% of full table
set)
Also very useful as a filter for UNIQUE indexes!

12. SQL Server 2008
Resource Governor
Manage workload and system resource consumption
3 new concepts
Resource Pools
Workload Groups
Classifier Functions
Directs each scheduler as to how to prioritize work within
each virtual instance (pool)

13. SQL Server 2008
Resource Governor

14. SQL Server 2008
Ensuring Business Continuity
Enhanced Mirroring
Auto-Page Repair
Log Stream Compression
Hot-add CPU
64 bit Enterprise only
sp_configure „affinity mask‟ and „affinity I/O mask‟

15. SQL Server 2008
General T-SQL Enhancements
Productive – for Developers
New Date and Time data types
DATE, TIME, DATETIME2
DATETIMEOFFSET
GROUPING SETS
Specify multiple group by clauses
Multi row INSERT
+= assignment
Inline variable initialisation

16. SQL Server 2008
MERGE statement
Productive – for Developers
New operation for performing multiple DML operations
across a full outer join
So you can perform INSERTS, UPDATES and DELETES
as appropriate
Key scenarios
Conditional insert / update
Synchronization

17. SQL Server 2008
Table Value Parameters
Productive – for Developers
Allows TABLE types to be passed as a parameter to a
stored procedure
Use by
Defining a User Defined Table type
Declaring a parameter in sproc or function as that table type
passing as READONLY
Call by passing a table instance

18. SQL Server 2008
Beyond Relational
Productivity – for Developers
Hierarchies and HierarchyId data type
File system based data
Sparse columns
Allows columns to be marked as SPARSE indicating they
may not have any data attached
Integrated Full Text Search

19. SQL Server 2008
Spatial Data
Productivity – for Developers
Vector based, industry spatial standards
Two new data types:
GEOMETRY
GEOGRAPHY
Implemented as managed UDT‟s in separate
assembly

20. SQL Server 2008
ADO.NET Entity Framework and LINQ
Productive – for Developers
Use ADO.NET Entities to rationalize our data and simplify
development
Object Relational Mapping
Leverage LINQ for querying
Reflects a shift towards domain driven architectures over
traditional data silos
At Intergen we use other ORMs instead… 
But LINQ is great

21. SQL Server 2008
T-SQL Enhancements
MERGE statement
Table Value Parameters

22. SQL Server 2008
Configuration Servers
Productive – for IT Pros
Group servers together for configuration or management
Multicast query – target all servers in the group at the
same time!
Collectively inspect or apply policy

23. SQL Server 2008
Policy Based Management
Productive – for IT Pros
New declarative policy system to manage instances
Uses DDL triggers and SQLCLR to enforce policy
Supports “true transactional” events
Fully scriptable

24. SQL Server 2008
Powershell
Productive – for IT Pros
A new tool for scripting on Windows
SQL Server integration
Object Explorer: Right-click, Start PowerShell
SQL Agent integration
Can now create PowerShell job steps.
External access
Native Providers to access SMO data and Policy
Provides direct SMO access
Invoke-sqlcmd cmdlet

25. SQL Server 2008
Configuration Servers
Policy Based Management
Powershell

26. SQL Server 2008
Integration Services
Breadth of solutions
Data Profiling
Change Data Capture
C# and VB.NET scripting
Lookup Transformation enhancements
Performance improvements
New Performance Counters

27. SQL Server 2008
Change Data Capture
Breadth of solutions
Information about what changed at the source
OLTP Operation (Insert, Update, Delete)
Update mask (which columns changed)
Change
Tables Changes captured from the log asynchronously
Minimal impact on source system
Log reader can be scheduled to run during idle time
Data Warehouse
Enabled per table
Hidden change tables store captured changes
One change table per source table that is tracked
CDC APIs provide access to change data

28. SQL Server 2008
Data Profiling

29. SQL Server 2008
Analysis Services
Breadth of solutions
Design it Right – help baked into design tools
Best practices
Performance tuning tricks
Configuration warnings
Performance Monitoring
Scalable backups
Scalable shared databases

30. SQL Server 2008
Reporting Services
Breadth of solutions
Combined Report Designer/Builder
New Chart/Graph/Guage visualisations
Rendering to Word, Excel, PDF, RTF
Report Designer improvements
Integration with SharePoint

31. SQL Server 2008
Frame
Effects
Scale
Breaks
Drawing
Styles
Multiple
Legends
Calculated
Series
Multiple
Striplines
Chart
Areas

32. SQL Server 2008
Gauge Samples
Radial Gauge Linear Gauge

33. SQL Server 2008
Synch/Search
Breadth of solutions
Synch services – v1.0
Fulltext indexing built into the SQL engine

34. SQL Server 2008
Platform vision
Enterprise Data Platform Services
Reporting Integration
Analysis Synch
FILE
Beyond Relational Query
RDBMS
XML
OLAP
Search
Dynamic Development
Mobile and
Server Cloud
Desktop
Pervasive Insight

35. SQL Server 2008
Enterprise Editions and features
Category Feature Name Enterprise Standard
High Availability Database snapshots Yes No
High Availability Online indexing Yes No
High Availability Online restore Yes No
High Availability Backup compression Yes No
Scalability Partitioning Yes No
Scalability Data Compression Yes No
Scalability Resource Governor Yes No
Security Fine grained auditing Yes No
Security Transparent database encryption Yes No
Integration Services Fuzzy logic/term extraction tasks Yes No
Integration Services Data mining tasks Yes No
Integration Services Dimension/Partition processing tasks Yes No
Data Warehouse Scaling Change data capture Yes No
Data Warehouse Scaling Star join query optimization Yes No
Data Warehouse Scaling Partitioned cubes Yes No
Data Warehouse Scaling Proactive caching Yes No
Multi-Dimensional Analytics Writeback dimensions Yes No
Multi-Dimensional Analytics Perspectives Yes No
Reporting Data driven subscriptions Yes No
Reporting Infinite click-through Yes No

36. SQL Server 2008
Quick wins/best bets
Trusted platform
Auditing, Database Encryption, Backup Compression,
Resource Governor, Management Data Warehouse
Developer Productivity
Everything except ADO.NET Entity Framework
IT Pro Productivity
Configuration Servers, Policy-based management,
Powershell
Business Intelligence
Falling into the pit of success