Application Platform

The Visual Studio tools and the .NET Framework development platform received significant updates in 2008; although the updates were labeled service packs, they delivered important new features for Web and database programming. Major updates to both tools and platform are planned for late 2009, including significant improvements for collaborative development and revisions to the Common Language Runtime application infrastructure.

SQL Server

The SQL Server product consists of a database management system (DBMS) and a platform for business intelligence (BI). The BI platform includes components for extracting data from operational systems for analysis (Integration Services), online analytic processing (OLAP) and data mining (Analysis Services), and design and distribution of reports (Reporting Services). (See the illustration “SQL Server and Business Intelligence Platform Overview“.)

SQL Server 2008 improvements include a new policy-based management capability which enables administrators to define policies such as naming conventions for tables and consistently enforce the policies across multiple databases or database servers. The database engine enables automatic full database encryption, and delivers useful new data types including types for maps and other geometric data. A new architecture for Reporting Services should simplify deployment and configuration by consolidating the system’s components into a single service, and a Report Builder feature will open report design to more business users than the previous Visual Studio tools. Both Integration Services and Analysis Services received performance improvements and some new features, including a new programming environment for Integration Services that supports the C# language, and improved designers and wizards in Analysis Services for cube design.