14 DAY TRIAL // With Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 1 and Visual Studio 2008 having already been released to manufacturing, Microsoft is moving onward to the RTM date of SQL Server 2008. An integral part of the Heroes Happen Here launch on February 27, 2008 in Los Angeles, SQL Server 2008 is the sole product that is yet to be finished, as Microsoft has already wrapped up with Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008. At the end of January 2008, the Redmond company clarified the roadmap for SQL Server 2008, explaining that although the product will be finished in the second half of this year, it will still be launched on February 27.
At the same time, Microsoft promised, and now delivered, a feature complete version of SQL Server 2008, formerly codenamed Katmai. "I'm pleased to announce that we just released the February CTP of SQL Server 2008. As we've talked about before, this is the feature complete CTP of SQL Server 2008 which includes all of the functionality planned for the release," stated Francois Ajenstat, director, project management for Microsoft's SQL Server division.
The new Community Technology Preview (CTP) test build of SQL Server 2008 is rolling out to an estimate 100,000 participants in the CTP program, according to Microsoft. The next move for Katmai will be the official launch next week. Only in the second quarter of 2008 will Microsoft drop the first Release Candidate of SQL Server 2008, and the product will be released to manufacturing in the third quarter of 2008.
"Here are some of the top features in this CTP - Data Compression, which reduces the storage and manageability cost of your database and provides significant performance improvements for workloads such as data warehousing. Enhancements to Policy Based Management, including policy violation alerts, policy import, the ability to run and evaluate multiple simultaneous policies, view the facets and evaluate policies when Object Explorer is connected to Analysis Services and Reporting Services, and more. Integrated Full Text Search, which makes the transition between Full-Text Search and relational data seamless while enabling the use of full-text indexes to perform high-speed text searches on large text columns," Ajenstat added.