Microsoft Corp releases SQL server 2008

New Delhi, Aug 7: Microsoft Corporation India Private Limited on Thursday, Aug 7 announced it's releasing to manufacturing SQL Server 2008, its enterprise database and business intelligence platform. It is the latest version of its acclaimed database management offering.

With this, SQL Server 2008 will be available to Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and computer manufacturers for the product's final physical replication and distribution. Originally planned for earlier this year to coincide with Windows Server 2008, SQL Server was delayed to insure the code was solid. SQL Server 2008 is the foundation of Microsoft's Business Intelligence solutions and provides customers with powerful new capabilities in areas like data governance, support for spatial data, policy-based management and advanced reporting and analysis services.

Along with the RTM, Microsoft also announced that SQL Server 2008 is available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. SQL Server 2008 licenses have already been available for ordering from August 1.

The Community Technology Preview (CTP) version of SQL Server 2008 was released in March 2008, and the new offering will be priced at the same value as the previous versions.

More than 450,000 customers and partners have downloaded SQL Server 2008 since the global CTP launch and nearly 1,000 ISVs, including SAP and UGS, have successfully developed over 75 large scale applications on the platform, with an additional 1350 applications currently underway.

"We have seen great success for SQL Server during our last financial year, with SQL Server revenue growing at an amazing 54 per cent - much faster than the market itself. This is testament to the fact that SQL Server is a mission critical, enterprise ready database solution that is seeing wide scale deployment across India and with the availability of SQL Server 2008, we expect to continue building on this great momentum," said Pallavi Kathuria, Director - Server Business Group, Microsoft India. S

he further added, "Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is the only major database that includes comprehensive, tightly integrated functionality for data management as well as advanced business intelligence - all out-of-the-box. By offering a complete solution, we save customers time and money and allow them to focus on deriving the most value from their data assets."

In India, over 30 ISVs including Sonata Software, Skelta, Polaris, Infrasoft, Natural Technologies, Nelito, DVS, Financial Technologies and Ramco have successfully built applications on SQL Server 2008. Additionally, early adopters of the platform like Kotak Mahindra Bank, Larsen and Toubro, TVS and Sahara India are already benefiting from the fresh feature enhancements in the platform.

"Working with SQL Server 2008 is a great experience for developers. The new version of the platform provides many tools and advanced features that help developers deliver faster, reliable and robust applications. Also, with the enhanced performance tuning features, customer can expect their queries to give better response time, greatly aiding speed of decision making in the organisation," said Raja Chanda, Senior Business Manager - Microsoft Services, Sonata Software.

SQL Server 2008 is available in six editions - SQL Server 2008 Enterprise, SQL Server 2008 Standard, SQL Server 2008 Workgroup, SQL Server 2008 Web, SQL Server 2008 Express and SQL Server Compact.

The new version will allow users to store data from structured, semi-structured and unstructured documents (such as images and music) directly within the database.

SQL Server 2008 also delivers a rich set of integrated services that enable users to do more with their data such as query, search, synchronize, report, and analyze.

With the new version, data can be stored and accessed in large servers within the data centre including desktops and mobile devices, enabling users to have control over their data irrespective of its storage location.

SQL Server is the first and only database showing results on TPC-E, the TPC's modern OLTP benchmark that realistically models real-world applications. SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 show record scalability and performance with ISV benchmarks covering a spectrum of customer scenarios.

Most recently, Unisys and Microsoft engineers successfully loaded one terabyte of data using SQL Server 2008 Integration Services in a record time of less than 30 minutes.

ANI