Sharepoint and SQL Server 2008

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Been asked lately for reasons to upgrade your SharePoint database server(s) to SQL Server 2008. I am sure that I am one of the MANY that have blogged about this, but here is a quick list of reasons that apply to any environment instead of Think performance, manageability, security, and cost savings. Oh, and SQL Server ROCKS!! Also worth noting is that Microsoft has certified SharePoint for running SQL Server 2008.

Performance

· Database Mirroring Improvements – Automatic page repair, over the wire log compression for reduced latency between primary and mirror instances

· Performance improvements in SQL Server 2008 to handle the most demanding workload and HUGE database sizes (10’s of terabytes). Just check out https://tpc.org for more info details.

 

Manageability

· Resource Governor – ensure that response times are predictable, by defining workload groups and implementing limits on CPU and Memory

· Policy Based Administration – Develop one set of policies and roll it out to every server. Best Practice policies included with SQL Server.

· Clustering Improvements – SQL 2008 has numerous improvements in clustering capabilities, simpler setup and management to add additional nodes to an existing cluster

· PowerShell - Extensible and scriptable to do just about anything you can think of inside your SQL Server setup.

Cost Savings

· Native SQL Server backup compression – Reduce the size of your backups by 40-50%. Backup and Restore time is also similarly reduced.

· Reporting Services in SharePoint – New report builder (which ROCKs by the way) is much easier to use and will result in spending less time developing rich reports

Security

· Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) – Ensure your databases are protected by enabling TDE without having to make any changes to your application or code.

· New Auditing capabilities – Allow you to answer the who, what, and when concerning accessing your data without the need to running SQL Profiler. Significantly less overhead in running audit.

Want or need more information about these features? Check out SQL 2008 Books Online on MSDN here. This list is far from complete, but I wanted to put something out there to get you thinking about the reasons to use SQL Server 2008.