SQL 2008 RTMs!

SQL 2008 is now on the MSDN Downloads and already in my download queue!

One of the things to get your head around is the different editions.  There's of course Standard and Enterprise but there are also specialized editions.  The specialized editions are Workgroup, Web, Compact and Express.  Web was the one that I hadn't seen carved out before. It's for low cost, large scale web targeted at shared hosting and large web apps that need scale out.  Read more here.   A summary of all the editions can be found here.

There's also detail comparisons of the versions like Enterprise vs. Standard here.  These make a great read to get your head around what's in each edition.   If your like me I always pay more attention to certain features and this gives me a broader look at all the features.  One thing is clear, Enterprise clearly has some differential features from standard.  This seems especially true around the BI /DW side of the world. if you want to see a more detailed comparison across all the editions you can find that here.

Another interesting read is the Whitepaper on hosting on Win 2008 (here).  One thing that I found interesting was the focus on consolidation with Virtual Database servers.  I'm really interested to kick the tires on the final release of this and hyper-v and see how they perform.  On the licensing front, the paper said "Enterprise edition, a single SQL Server license is valid for unlimited instances of SQL Server in multiple virtual machines on the same physical computer."  That seems like another step towards more friendly virtualization licensing.

Moving to SQL 2008?

Before you just jump out and upgrade everything to SQL 2008 make sure you do a bit of planning.  Probably the biggest thing is to make sure that any application you depend on is ready to run on SQL 2008.  I know some vendor applications will take a little bit to ensure they are compatible with the final release.  Now that SQL has released they can start their final checks.

A good place to start thinking about upgrading is here.  You can find information on planning for upgrade and also an Upgrade Advisor tool that will analyze and give feedback.  Detailed backward compatibility info can be found here.