SQL Server 2008 was launched on February 27, 2008 alongside Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008, but the platform was only released to manufacturing on August 6, 2008, and is available for download only to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. The Redmond company promised that the downloads for the SQL Server 2008 Express and SQL Server Compact SKUs will go live on August 7 on the official website for SQL Server 2008, but at the time of this article this was not yet the case. Still, the software giant's data management and business intelligence platform has gone gold, and in the end availability is only a matter of time.

"Microsoft developed this release of SQL Server with the customer in mind. SQL Server 2008 is the only major database that includes comprehensive, tightly integrated functionality for data management as well as advanced business intelligence out of the box. By offering a complete solution, we save customers time and money and allow them to focus on deriving the most value from their data assets," revealed Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of the Data and Storage Platform Division at Microsoft.

With the Redmond giant applauding the finalization of what it referred to as a component of the Microsoft Application Platform, customers will be able to leverage new features and capabilities including: Transparent Data Encryption, Auditing, Enhanced Database Mirroring, Automatic Recovery of Data Pages, Hot Add CPU and more. SQL Server 2008 will be offered in no less than eight flavors, including SQL Server 2008 Enterprise, SQL Server 2008 Standard, SQL Server 2008 Workgroup, SQL Server 2008 Web, SQL Server 2008 Developer, SQL Server 2008 Express and SQL Server Compact 3.5.

"The wait is over. SQL Server 2008 has been released and is ready to deliver a rich set of integrated services that enable you to do more with your data, such as query, search, synchronize, report, and analyze. Many of you have been evaluating the SQL Server 2008 betas, and may be ready to try out the RTM version," revealed Mitch Irsfeld, editor, TechNet Flash via "Is This Thing On?"

And indeed SQL Server 2008 is already a success with Microsoft applauding in excess of 450,000 community technology preview (CTP) downloads of the product.