CREATE BLOG dbo.SqlServer

So I've been playing around with SQL Server 2008 (nee Katmai) for about 3-4 days now and I wanted to just write about some of the new features and what the overall feel of Katmai is. I've already posted about some of the new features in SQL Server 2008 so I won't cover them all, just the ones that I played with. 

First, let's dismiss with the formalities: SQL Server 2008 feels like nothing more than a renamed SQL Server 2005 SP2 with one or two new features. There's no huge feature list and the tools feel the exact same. In fact, given the several-year-old trend of putting new features in every Service Pack, Microsoft makes this really feel like SQL Server 2005 SP3 if not SQL Server 2005 SP2b. It is so close to SQL Server 2005, to me, that it doesn't even feel like a .5 version! In case that didn't make sense, we had SQL Server 6.0, then 6.5, right? Well this feels like SQL Server 2005.3; it doesn't even warrant a full .5 :)

Feature Rundown:

• This version just totally and absolutely feels like SQL Server 2005. In fact, without the version number at the top, you'd be hard pressed to know, visually-speaking, that you are on SQL 2008:
  • SSIS seems no different
  • SSMS seems no different except that it now has a "Policy Management" folder underneath "Management"
    • SSMS is faster for me although I have read other posts from bloggers saying that it was terribly slow (like the 2005 betas were). It runs circles around the SQL 2005 version of SSMS on my machines
  • Profiler seems no different
    • The Profiler GUI is much faster to load and execute on my machine now
  • Books Online seems no different
  • sqlcmd seems no different
  • SQL Server Configuration Manager seems no different

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• There's still no *&*%ing Intellisense in the Query Window

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• No new data types and no new terms to learn regarding security (again, except for policies)
• Again - no Date and no Time data type...

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• There don't appear to be any new database options except what was added in SQL Server 2005 SP2 (again, this feels like SP2b)

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• it's a lot easier to setup and manage peer-to-peer replication today as well as to add new members (no longer do you have to resynch every member)

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• We still have the security option to "Enable Common Criteria Compliance" which is a server-level option that was added in SQL Server 2005 SP2 and we still have C2 Auditing
• Enabling Common Criteria Compliance effectively logs all Loginoptions, makes changes to how SQL Server manages memory, and a few other changes.
• Links:
• Common Criteria Certification page on microsoft.com
• Official website of the Common Criteria Project
• Here's a good breakdown from my friend Alex/Haidong Ji about C2 and Common Criteria Compliance and SQL Server

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• I tried, tried, tried to get policies to work but I struck out (or, rather, SSMS struck out since it threw one unhandled exception after another).
  • They look neat though... You can schedule your policies to execute at various times and have them target very specific items like whether or not a backup file name meets whatever criteria you want.

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• I tried to find new settings, new options, new security features (non-policy based) but, after quick inspections of the various screens/tools, there just aren't any visually available

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• They still think they are fooling us by giving us a tool called the SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio (in case you're new, the "SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio" is really just a renamed shortcut to Visual Studio 2005). No news on whether the RTM will include Visual Studio 2008's shell instead of the currently-installed VS2005 IDE.

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• I looked for the Resource Governor, a feature mentioned in the pre-release press materials, but couldn't find anything, anywhere...

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• I tried to find information on how "Geographic data will be more easily stored" (more pre-release marketing info) but was unable to locate anything

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• Ditto for document management which is supposed to be far easier in 2008

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• And ditto for the "comprehensive data auditing" features touted in the marketing materials - dunno where to find this.

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• Books Online doesn't really have too much info about the new features which means you learn by hunting-and-pecking in the IDE. Example: If you browse to the "What's New in SQL Server 2008" Books Online entry, it's all "to be filled in later" and errors (or at least it was on my not-connected-to-the-web machine).

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• They've still kept the really user-unfriendly SSIS layout, build options, and package saving/editing choices

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• No new Reporting Services options that I saw in a quick overview

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After looking over the list of new features in SQL Server 2008, most of the new features are only found once you integrate with other apps (such as Office 200x, SharePoint) which may delay/slow down the adoption (Why upgrade to SQL 2008 if you aren't also upgrading to SharePoint 2009 or Office 2009?).

I couldn't get it to install the workstation components on my machine that already had SQL Server 2005 on it therefore the install sucked. Once I completely removed SQL 2005 from my machine, I was able to install the workstation components thankfully.

Final Thoughts on This First Beta of SQL Server 2008

So maybe Microsoft doesn't call it a beta (technically it's known as a CTP) but come on, it's a beta and we all know it. I get a lot of unhandled exceptions (I do like the next exception markers in the dialog boxes though) but, overall, it's a LOT MORE STABLE than SQL Server 2005's Beta 3 ever was lol.

While I do appreciate the new stability, I must say that I feel duped - duped into thinking that I was going to test/install a NEW version of SQL Server. In my opinion, this is more like a "service pack" and not a new version and so I feel as though I'm testing a new service pack... This seems to be the SQL Server 2005 R2 version that we heard about a few months ago instead of a new version of SQL Server.

Overall, I'm not really that upset that we don't have a ton of new features. Think about it - how likely is it that companies are going to change versions of their database server every 3 years? Maybe 5+ years ago this was an option since we all had fewer Microsoft databases and they were likely much smaller but today? Not likely...

# posted by Scott Whigham @ 10:42 AM