SQL Server 2008 promussed to bring more of all the good and important feature we have come to expect from an enterprise level, professional database management system: security, reliability, manageability, scalability and enhanced productivity. Here is a run-down of the new and improved features that SQL Server 2008 will bring:

• Transparent Data Encryption: SQL Server 2008 provides the ability to encrypt an entire database, data files or log files, without the need for application changes.
• Extensible Key Management: SQL Server 2008 adds support for third-party key management and HSM products.
• Auditing: ability to create and manage auditing via DDL while simplifying compliance by providing more comprehensive data auditing.
• Enhanced Database Mirroring: SQL Server 2008 eliminates the need to specify the failover partner which enables existing applications to take advantage of mirroring.
• Automatic Recovery of Data Pages: SQL Server 2008 enables the principal and mirror machines to transparently recover from 823/824 types of data page errors by requesting a fresh copy of the suspect page from the mirroring partner transparently to end users and applications.
• Log Stream Compression: The compression of the outgoing log stream between the mirroring participants allows SQL Server 2008 to deliver optimal performance and minimizes the network bandwidth.
• Resource Governor: provides for defining resource limits and priorities for different workloads which enable concurrent workloads to provide consistent performance to end users
• Predictable Query Performance: ability to lock down query plans to allow for promotion of stable query plans across hardware server replacements, server upgrades, and production deployments.
• Data Compression: store data more effectively thus reducing storage requirements and significantly improving performance for large I/O workloads like data warehousing.
• Hot Add CPU: ability to add CPU resources without incurring any downtime.
• Declarative Management Framework (DMF): policy-based system for managing one or more instances of SQL Server 2008. Use DMF with SQL Server Management Studio to create policies that manage entities on the server, such as the instance of SQL Server, databases, and other SQL Server objects.
• Streamlined Installation: SQL Server 2008 separates the installation of the physical bits on the hardware from the configuration of the SQL Server software.
• Performance Data Collection: SQL Server 2008 provides actionable performance insight to administrators.
• Language Integrated Query (LINQ): allows for issuing queries against data using a managed programming language such as C# or VB.NET, instead of SQL statements.
• ADO.Net Object Services: ability to program against a SQL Server database using CLR objects that are managed by ADO.NET
• Store any information:
  • Date/Time - SQL Server 2008 introduces new date and time data types like DATE for date only; TIME for time only; DATETIMEOFFSET for time zone aware datetime type; and DATETIME2 for a datetime type with larger fractional seconds and year range.
  • Hierarchy ID - allows for modeling tree structures in a more efficient way than currently possible
  • Filestream Data - store large binary data directly in an NTFS file system
  • Integrated Full Text Search - seamless transition between Text Search and relational data
  • Sparse Columns - efficient management of empty data in a database
  • Large User Defined Types - SQL Server 2008 eliminated the 8KB limit for UDTs
  • Spatial Data Types - geography data types for Round Earth solutions and geometry data types for Flat Earth solutions
• Integrate any data:
  • Backup Compression
  • Partitioned Table Parallelism
  • Star Join Query Optimizations
  • Grouping Sets
  • Change Data Capture
  • MERGE SQL Statement
  • SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) Pipeline Improvements
  • SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) Persistent Lookups
• Deliver Relevant Information: analysis sclae and performance, block computation and writeback.
• Enterprise Reporting Engine: deliver reports throughout the organization both internally and externally with simplified deployment and configuration;
• Internet Report Deployment: deploy reports over the internet;
• Report Builder Enhancements: build ad-hoc and author reports with any structure through Report Designer
• Report Server Application Embedding: enables the URLs in reports and subscriptions to point back to frontend applications;
• Microsoft Office Integration: SQL Server 2008 provides new Word rendering that enables users to consume reports directly from within Microsoft Office Word.

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