SQL Server 2008 R2 delivers on Microsoft’s data platform vision by helping organisations manage any data, any place, any time. It enables users to store data from structured, semi-structured, and unstructured documents, such as images and music, directly within databases. SQL Server 2008 R2 delivers a rich set of integrated services that enable users to do more with your data such as query, search, synchronise, report, and analyse. Data can be stored and accessed in your largest servers within the data center all the way down to desktops and mobile devices, enabling you to have control over data no matter where it is stored.

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Product Variants - SQL Server 2008

SQL Server [Datacenter]

SQL Server [Developer Edition]

SQL Server [Enterprise Edition]

SQL Server [Standard Edition]

SQL Server [Workgroup Edition]

Other product variants may be available, please contact us or request a call back if you cannot see what you are looking for.

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New Features

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SQL Server 2008 R2 - New Features

New editions

There are 2 new Premium editions available with the launch of SQL Server 2008 R2, both designed for large datacenters/data warehouses.

• Datacenter - provides support for the servers with more than 8 processors and supports RAM limits up to the OS maximum. Comes with multi-server management tools for managing over 25 instances of SQL Server and StreamInsight to deliver insights from steaming information in near real-time.
• Parallel Data Warehouse - ideal for storing 10 - 100s of terabytes of information with the massively parallel processing (MPP) architecture. Parallel Data Warehouse integrates with SSIS, SSRS and SSAS, supports the standard warehousing hub and spoke architecture and supports advanced data warehousing capabilities such as Star Join Queries and Change Data Capture.

PowerPivot

PowerPivot helps when viewing very large amounts of data:

• For SharePoint - With SharePoint and Excel Services you can load, query and manage PowerPivot workbooks published to SharePoint
• For Excel - view large amounts of SQL Server data efficiently within Excel 2010.

Master Data Services

A new feature in SQL Server 2008 R2, Master Data Services helps you to:

• Integrate disparate operational and analytical systems with the Master Data Services to ensure all applications, across your company, use a single, central and accurate source of information so you get a single version of the truth
• Master Data Services maintains an auditable record of data changes over time
• Give users direct and secure access to data from a Web-based portal where they can browse, edit, author, audit and approve master data
• Manage data using powerful and agile hierarchies with support for a wide variety of hierarchy styles

Improved Multi-Server Administration

SQL Server 2008 R2 introduces SQL Server Utility for managing multiple instances of the SQL Server Database Engine along with other manageability improvements:

• SQL Server Utility - manage all your SQL Server related entities in a unified view. Use an instance of SQL Server as the utility control point (UCP). The UCP is the central reasoning point for the SQL Server Utility. It supports actions such as applying central policies, or analysing resource utilisation trends of an instance to predict when it might exceed central resource utilisation polices
• Data-Tier Application (DAC) - simplifies the development, deployment and management of the data-tier objects that support a multi-tier or client-server application. Define the schema and the DAC operates as a single unit of management
• Connect to SQL Azure from the client utilities.

Enhanced reporting

There are numerous enhancements to SQL Server Reporting Services, including:

• New data visualisations - use maps, sparklines, data bars and indicators to more easily get a visual overview of your data
• Enhanced SharePoint integration - this includes support for multiple SharePoint Zones, support for the SharePoint Universal Logging service, a new data extension, a query designer for SharePoint Lists as a data source, and support for right-to-left text with Arabic and Hebrew in the SharePoint user interface
• Shared datasets - retrieve data from a shared data source. A shared dataset provides a way to share a query to help provide a consistent set of data for multiple reports.
• New data sources - report on SQL Azure, SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse and SharePoint Lists
• And much more - including improved report authoring tools such as the updated graphical query designer, an enhanced preview experience, new lookup functions and more.

SQL Server 2008 - New Features

Protect valuable information

• Transparent Data Encryption - enable encryption of an entire database, data files, or log files, without the need for application changes. Benefits of this include: Search encrypted data using both range and fuzzy searches, search secure data from unauthorised users, and data encryption without any required changes in existing applications
• Extensible Key Management - SQL Server 2005 provides a comprehensive solution for encryption and key management. SQL Server 2008 delivers an excellent solution to this growing need by supporting third-party key management and HSM products
• Auditing - create and manage auditing via DDL, while simplifying compliance by providing more comprehensive data auditing. This enables organisations to answer common questions, such as,What data was retrieved?

Ensure business continuity

• Enhanced Database Mirroring - SQL Server 2008 builds on SQL Server 2005 by providing a more reliable platform that has enhanced database mirroring, including automatic page repair, improved performance, and enhanced supportability
• Automatic Recovery of Data Pages - SQL Server 2008 enables the principal and mirror machines to transparently recover from 823/824 types of data page errors by requesting a fresh copy of the suspect page from the mirroring partner transparently to end users and applications
• Log Stream Compression - database mirroring requires data transmissions between the participants of the mirroring implementations. With SQL Server 2008, compression of the outgoing log stream between the participants delivers optimal performance and minimises the network bandwidth used by database mirroring.

Enable predictable response

• Resource Governor - provide a consistent and predictable response to end users with the introduction of Resource Governor, allowing organisations to define resource limits and priorities for different workloads, which enable concurrent workloads to provide consistent performance to their end users
• Predictable Query Performance - enable greater query performance stability and predictability by providing functionality to lock down query plans, enabling organisations to promote stable query plans across hardware server replacements, server upgrades, and production deployments
• Data Compression - enable data to be stored more effectively, and reduce the storage requirements for your data. Data compression also provides significant performance improvements for large I/O bound workloads, like data warehousing
• Hot Add CPU - dynamically scale a database on demand by allowing CPU resources to be added to SQL Server 2008 on supported hardware platforms without forcing any downtime on applications.

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Licensing

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There are various ways to license Microsoft products - please see our ‘Microsoft Licensing’ buyers guide on the left or click Call Me above and we will contact you to discuss the options.