Your Data, Any Place, Any Time - SQL Server 2008 "Katmai"

I guess now I should start writing my blog with the CTP (Community Technology Preview) release of SQL Server 2008 code name "Katmai". So let see what we got in this latest release of SQL Server from Microsoft.

So what Microsoft is calling its new release "Your data, any place, any time"......hmm.......sound good to me....

The major feature I see in this release is the capability to store data in file system along with existing relational and XML data. This new feature provides the facility to store large binary data in file system, still being a part of database with transactional consistency. So looks like an effective storage model with all database benefits.

Another interesting feature is working with entities instead of tables. So this new ADO.Net Entity Framework enables developers to work with business entities like "employee" or "student" instead of using tables.

LINQ (Language Integrated Query) another new feature is very useful with its capability to query the SQL Server in any programming language instead of using SQL to query the database.

Encrypting the whole database is another enhancement in this release. That means instead of Encrypting a table or column we can encrypt the whole database, log, or data file without making much change in application logic.

On the same lines encryption with third-party key is also beneficial for regulatory compliance.

Automatic recovery of corrupted data pages from mirrored server is another important enhancement in this release and the best part of this feature is transparency to end-user.

Resource Governor, as the name says coming up for the first time with SQL Server 2008. It’s very useful to define the priorities and resource limits, thus getting consistent and predictable performance benefits.

Go to http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/futureversion/default.mspx to know more about SQL Server 2008.