SQL Server Updated for Office 2007, Vista

The second service pack for Microsoft’s SQL Server 2005 database management system also delivers important new features and fixes for the BI platform.

About half of SP2’s 143 documented fixes apply to Analysis Services, Reporting Services, or Integration Services. Other notable points include the following:

SharePoint Server 2007 reporting components. SP2 delivers enhanced integration between Reporting Services and SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. For example, SP2 introduces utilities for publishing and managing Reporting Services reports in SharePoint report libraries and Web Parts that can display those reports in SharePoint Web pages.

Excel 2007 compatibility. SP2 is required for some Excel 2007 features (e.g., new PivotTable capabilities) that rely on Analysis Services. The relevant features will be automatically disabled when Excel 2007 is used with earlier versions of SQL Server Analysis Services.

Extensions for new data sources. SP2 delivers a new Reporting Services provider for Hyperion Essbase, which enables reporting against a major third-party analytic database platform. An updated IBM DB2 provider provides better performance and support for new versions of IBM’s DBMS, which will particularly benefit customers using the SQL Server BI components to analyze DB2 databases. SP2 also includes Integration Services import/export support for Access 2007 data files.