SQL Server 2008 Beta: It's Here! -- Visual Studio Magazine

Data Driverby David Ramel

SQL Server 2008 Beta: It's Here!

With just one week to go before Microsoft's big enterprise software launch in Los Angeles, the company has dropped the what it calls the first "feature-complete" beta release of SQL Server 2008.

One feature Microsoft is really touting is its support for compression.

"Some of the performance gains by turning on compression are huge," said Francois Ajenstat, Microsoft's director of SQL Server product management in a recent interview. Microsoft decided to up the ante after IBM did the same back in 2002 with DB2, which has become a popular feature in that platform, according to a report in Beta News.

Other key features in the CTP: improvements to the Declarative Management Framework (DMF), which adds policy management to the database server, and support for full text search. It is available for download here.

Once you test the beta, drop me a line and share your thoughts [email protected].

Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 02/20/2008

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