Specifications

C H A P T E R 1

SQL Server 2008 R2 Editions

and Enhancements

icrosoft SQL Server 2008 R2 is the most advanced, trusted, and scalable data

platform released to date. Building on the success of the original SQL Server 2008

release, SQL Server 2008 R2 has made an impact on organizations worldwide with its

groundbreaking capabilities, empowering end users through self-service business intelligence

(BI), bolstering efciency and collaboration between database administrators (DBAs) and ap-

plication developers, and scaling to accommodate the most demanding data workloads.

This chapter introduces the new SQL Server 2008 R2 features, capabilities, and edi-

tions from a DBA’s perspective. It also discusses why Windows Server 2008 R2 is recom-

mended as the underlying operating system for deploying SQL Server 2008 R2. Last, SQL

Server 2008 R2 hardware and software requirements and installation strategies are also

identied.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Enhancements for DBAs

Now more than ever, organizations require a trusted, cost-effective, and scalable data-

base platform that offers efciency and managed self-service BI. These organizations

face ever-changing business conditions in the global economy, IT budget constraints,

and the need to stay competitive by obtaining and utilizing the right information at the

right time.

With SQL Server 2008 R2, they can meet the pressures head on to achieve these

demanding goals. This release delivers an award-winning enterprise-class database plat-

form with robust capabilities that improve efciency through better resource utilization,

end-user empowerment, and scaling out at lower costs. Enhancements to scalability and

performance, high availability, enterprise security, enterprise manageability, data ware-

housing, reporting, self-service BI, collaboration, and tight integration with Microsoft

Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft SharePoint 2010, and SQL Server PowerPivot for SharePoint

make it the best database platform available.

SQL Server 2008 R2 is considered to be a minor version upgrade of SQL Server 2008.

However, for a minor upgrade it offers a tremendous amount of new, breakthrough

capabilities that DBAs can take advantage of.