The Microsoft Stack: No Need to Hesitate on SQL Server 2008 Migration
By Patrick Hynds
September 15, 2008 — 
After several rounds of betas and community technical previews, Microsoft has released SQL Server 2008. Almost all organizations have some version of SQL Server in their environment, and since Microsoft does not really come out with new versions that often, it is pretty stable. You might even have very old versions like SQL Server 7 still kicking around (I have run into SQL Server 4.2 a few times in the last couple of years), but it does pay to upgrade.
The new hardware, especially 64-bit processing and the added memory space that grants, can really ramp up your application performance. So with that in mind what does this new SQL Server promise?
If the tagline Microsoft is using is a good indicator (and it is in my opinion), then SQL Server 2008 is trying to be the back-end engine for the Web and especially Web 2.0. You will see "Your Data, Any Place, Any Time" around, and I think that is really a reference to the Web. There are new capabilities in SQL Server to store music and images and even unstructured documents, which all have applications for Web sites.
While this seems to be the main marketing message, it is only the tip of the iceberg of new features. Over the last few versions of SQL Server, data warehousing has been ramping up, and this version is no exception. Writeback enabled MOLAP (Multidimensional OLAP) in SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services will remove the need for ROLAP (Relational OLAP) queries in many organizations and result in a big performance gain. Other OLAP improvements are on the tool side, where Microsoft has been busy helping consolidate the market by buying up ISVs with interesting offerings, coupled with extensive integration with Microsoft Office 2007; much of what used to be the strict province of Excel is coming to Word and the rest of Office.
A new cross-validation feature helps prevent human errors and also opens the door for building data mining add-ins for Office 2007 that let organizations really integrate their analysis into their business processes.
There are many new features around Date and Time handling to help with just this kind of development, including the much-requested date-only data type, called Date, and the time-only data type, named Time. For real-time systems, there is now a data type called DateTime2 that allows for more precision in time and extends the years for these values. I think that this version of SQL Server will bring OLAP into the mainstream the same way SQL Server 7.0 brought replication into the mainstream.
Then there are Spatial Data Types. Some people are very excited about this, but others likely will not understand it without the shortest of primers.
If you are into GPS or mapping, then you likely already know where this is going. Spatial types now make it much easier to use SQL Server as the back end of a system that is location-aware. When combined with the OLAP improvements I mentioned before, I think we will see companies discovering routing and trending ideas that could revolutionize any business that depends on deliveries and driving to get their job done.
It is not hard to get SQL Server 2008 running, especially if you are used to the older versions, thanks to streamlined installation. Other great features to ease the support burden are policy-based management, which allows you to manage 50 SQL Servers as easily as two; Performance Studio, which gives you great performance data for troubleshooting and performance tuning; and online backup compression for the growing number of enterprises that are going with disk-based backups instead of tape.
In the end, if you don't have spatial data or OLAP needs in your organization, you might be tempted to wait before ramping up your organization with SQL Server 2008. But don't wait too long. There is a lot under the covers that is also helping increase performance, and this version of SQL Server will go a long way in helping you stay ahead of growing user and customer demands for faster performance. Early reports are that this version is as solid as those of the past, so while I often advise waiting for a service pack, I see no signs that this is needed here.
Patrick Hynds, president of CriticalSites and a Microsoft Regional Director, can be reached at phynds@criticalsites.com.Related Search Term(s): database management,
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