In case you missed it, Microsoft released SQL Server 2008 R2 in all its various flavors.
Some pretty interesting stuff in SQL Server 2008 R2 including:
- PowerPivot: a managed self-service analysis solution that empowers end users to access, analyze and share data across the enterprise in an IT managed environment using Excel 2010 and SharePoint Sever 2010.
- Master Data Services: helps IT organizations centrally manage critical data assets companywide and across diverse systems, and enables more people to securely manage master data directly, and ensure the integrity of information over time.
- Application and Multi-server Management: helps organizations proactively manage database environments efficiently at scale through centralized visibility into resource utilization and streamlined consolidation and upgrade initiatives across the application lifecycle.
- Report Builder 3.0: report authoring component with support for geospatial visualization. This new release provides capabilities to further increase end user productivity with enhanced wizards, more powerful visualizations, and intuitive authoring.
- StreamInsight: a low latency complex event processing platform to help IT monitor, analyze and act on the data in motion to make more informed business decisions in near real-time.
For those developers using SQL Server 2008 Express, you can download the SQL Server 2008 R2 Express with Management Functions here. For those developers interested in SQL Server 2008 R2 with Advanced Services, you can download it here.
You can find all kinds of videos and other resources on SQL Server 2008 R2 here.
David Hayden