By Chris Alliegro [bio]
Posted: Aug. 22, 2005

SQL Server 2005 includes major enhancements across the product's business intelligence (BI) platform, a collection of development tools, programming interfaces, run-time services, and management utilities for building applications that support business decision-making. The BI platform's improved performance, new integrated development environment based on Visual Studio 2005, and host of new data integration, analysis, and reporting features could prove a major driving force for upgrades of SQL Server 2005. In addition, the platform's enhancements could help Microsoft draw customers with complex data integration, analysis, and reporting needs away from competitors such as Business Objects, Informatica, and Oracle. However, some SQL Server 2000 BI applications will need to be rewritten to run on the SQL Server 2005 BI platform, and some features in previous platform versions are not carried forward to SQL Server 2005. Furthermore, the breadth and scope of changes in the release suggests that developers and other users will require some ramp-up time before being able to take full advantage of the platform.

This report describes the major changes in the SQL Server 2005 BI platform, an integral part of SQL Server 2005, which is scheduled to launch in Nov. 2005. The report contains sections describing the updates to each of the platform's major components: Integration Services, Analysis Services, and Reporting Services. Following these sections, the report discusses issues and caveats customers and partners should consider when evaluating the SQL Server 2005 BI platform. Finally, an appendix outlines the new licensing and pricing structure for SQL Server 2005 and provides a mapping of BI features to SQL Server 2005 editions.