Third SQL Server 2005 Service Pack

A third service pack for Microsoft’s SQL Server 2005 database management system delivers several minor new features in the product’s Reporting Services, Replication, and Notification Services components. The service pack also delivers the usual host of bug fixes, rolling up fixes previously delivered in cumulative updates, which are small bundles of hotfixes released on a regular schedule between service packs. However, SP3 does not include all of the cumulative updates shipped since the release of SQL Server 2005 SP2, so organizations planning to install SP3 will have to consider installation order carefully, and may have to reinstall missing updates.

Updates to Reporting, Notification Services

SP3 includes several hundred bug fixes across SQL Server 2005’s feature areas and a handful of new features, including the following:

Report models for Teradata. With SP3, SQL Server 2005 supports creating Reporting Services report models from data stored in Teradata databases. (Report models enable ad-hoc report creation for business users.) Previously SQL Server 2005 supported report models for SQL Server and Oracle data sources.