SQL Server 2008 R2 has RTMed

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We are very excited to share that today, Microsoft released SQL Server 2008 R2 to manufacturing! Customers can expect availability in the next few weeks through Microsoft’s distribution channels. For more information, visit www.sqlserverlaunch.com.

SQL Server 2008 R2 enhancements continue to support mission-critical workloads providing a trusted, scalable platform, increased developer and IT efficiency and managed self-service business intelligence reporting and analytics. It is for these very reasons that SQL Server 2008 R2 is setting records for performance and price/performance on industry standard benchmarks.

SQL Server 2008 R2, as part of Microsoft’s complete information platform, makes gathering, managing and using business information easier and more cost-effective for businesses. No other company can offer this to customers. Not Oracle. Not IBM.

Some of the capabilities that customers and partners will benefit from include:

  • 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.

Customers including Bank of New Zealand , PREMIER Bankcard , Studio Moderna and CareGroup Healthcare System are already taking advantage of the new scalability, BI and manageability features in SQL Server 2008 R2. Furthermore, more than 2,000 global ISVs are delivering applications worldwide. A few of these partners include SafeNet, Inc. , Brocade , Stratus Technologies , Dassault Systèmes , ESRI and OSIsoft, LLC.

To explore what’s new in the SQL Server 2008 R2 release, please visit the SQL Server 2008 R2 Digital Tour at www.sqlserverlaunch.com. Additionally, remember to use the #SQLR2 hashtag when Tweeting all SQL Server 2008 R2 related news!

To get up to speed with SQL Server 2008 R2 make sure you also download the free ebook (PDF, XPS) from MSPress.

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