Wednesday, April 21, 2010

SQL Server 2008 R2 Released Today

SQL Server 2008 R2 RTM’d today (technically a week ago, but publicly announced today), and wSQLServerR2_Bannerill be available on MSDN Subscribers downloads on May 3.  You can get the Express or trial edition today, though (if you can’t wait two more weeks for the developer edition).

It includes features such as, but not limited to:

  • PowerPivot – data visualize Excel add-in for high-performance “self-service BI”.
  • Reporting Services improvements, mapping/geospatial capabilities, Report Builder 3.0.
  • Master Data Services – an MDM application and service components for any-domain data hubs.
  • StreamInsight – event processing platform for monitoring and analytics of data in motion (think real-time business decisions).
  • Support for more processors (Datacenter edition).
  • Parallel Data Warehouse (formerly “Madison”) – highly scalable data warehouse appliance (based on DATAllegro)

If you like whitepapers and official docs, go here for marketing material: www.sqlserverlaunch.com

Here is the Microsoft Data Platform Insider blog about it: http://blogs.technet.com/dataplatforminsider/

A ZDNet blog post about the release news: blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=5973&tag=col1;post-5973

Here is the official product website: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/R2.aspx

Here is a post from a team member on the SSRS group regarding Reporting Services in this release:
http://blogs.msdn.com/robertbruckner/archive/2010/04/21/sql-server-2008-r2-rtm.aspx