All Microsoft service packs are not created equal in terms of the "translucency" factor, just Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows XP SP3. But then again only the Windows client products and Windows Live are under the gag of Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, who just fails to have much of an affinity for corporate transparency. Francois Ajenstat, the Director of SQL Server Marketing at Microsoft, confirmed, in the spirit of transparency that Sinofsky is trying to kill, that the Redmond company will be serving the third service pack for SQL Server 2005.

"Over the last year we have successfully established the Incremental Servicing Model, which has to date delivered 7 cumulative updates (CU) to our customers, in regular 8 week intervals. We've heard feedback from customers of the need for a third service pack for SQL Server 2005. I'm happy to inform you that we will in fact deliver an SP3 following the release to manufacturing of SQL Server 2008. Our goal is to get SP3 released in the market in CY2008," Ajenstat stated.

The announcement is designed to enable customers to enjoy the benefits of a period of proactive testing and deployment planning. SQL Server 2008 is currently planned for RTM in the third quarter of this year. And in this regard, SP3 for SQL Server 2005 will drop by the end of 2008. But for the time being Microsoft is pushing ahead with ISM.

"The Incremental Servicing Model has been very effective ensuring that customers receive the latest updates for SQL Server on a regular predictable schedule. We are hearing positive comments from customers, who like the ease and predictability the ISM provides. Customers rely on the predictable time frame to pre-select the day that the fix will go into production, which eliminates any downtime for its servers," Ajenstat added.

The latest release of ISM is SQL Server 2005 - Cumulative Update 7, made available for download on April 14. Cumulative update package 7 is designed to integrate exclusively with SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2, and has taken the build of the product to 3239. "the most recent cumulative update package for SQL Server 2005 SP2 contains all of the hotfixes that have been released since the initial release of SQL Server 2005 SP2," explained Chris Williams, Program Manager SQL Server Sustained Engineering.