Did you Experience the NEW SQL Server 2008 R2 [Kilimanjaro]
Kilimanjaro is now SQL Server 2008 R2. This is the next version of SQL Server 2008 that will give your organization a power steering to drive the Business Intelligence efforts much faster & focused in your organization. Why I say that it is the next version of SQL Server 2008 instead of “SQL Server” is because Kilimanjaro has extended the existing capabilities of SQL Server 2008.
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The Kilimanjaro comes with some of the most powerful features and most desired features for Business Intelligence that will allow the organizations to broaden the reach of BI to every section of the business helping business to take faster, better and more relevant decisions. SQL Server 2008 R2 will help you to unlock your data & produce meaningful information in no time which in turn will empower the end users to take reliable & relevant decisions.
SQL Server 2008 R2 is presently in the CTP (Community Technology Preview) stage it can be downloaded from the Microsoft Website : https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ee315247.aspx . I started using the SQL Server 2008 R2 since last a few days and among the features I used, I find them all very compelling and convincing.
Some of the features / project that SQL Server 2008 R2 comes with are worth mentioning like the “Project Madison” which is a highly scalable and high performance data warehouse appliance that will deliver amazing performance at low cost through a massively parallel processing (MPP). Moreover it allows you to scale your data warehouse from Terabyte to Petabyte range on an Industry Standard Hardware. The best part is that “Project Madison” will complement your existing SQL BI solution & ongoing BI efforts because the appliance model of “Project Madison” simplifies deployment and maintenance, it integrates with existing SQL Server 2008 data warehouses via hub-and-spoke architecture and the fruits are greater ROI from BI investments through integration with SQL Server 2008.
A sample of scale out data warehouse with “Madison”.
Do you love MS-Excel for analyzing your business results ? The project “Gemini” in an innovative solution that allows you to analyze your data on your most loved tool MS-Excel. This Excel add-in enables the Excel power users to easily create powerful BI solutions by streamlining the integration of data from multiple sources enabling interactive modeling and analysis of massive amount of data. “Gemini” also supports the effortless sharing of data models and reports through Microsoft Office SharePoint 2010.
A quick look at the “Gemini” dashboard
People are using SQL Server Reporting Services for sometime now, they have developed their critical and important reporting solutions with SQL Server Reporting Services. So now the SQL Server 2008 R2 comes with an enhanced SQL Server Reporting Services which also has a new and enhanced Report Builder component the “Report Builder 3.0”. The Report Builder 3.0 accelerates report creation, collaboration and consistency. The Reporting Services now allows rich visualization of geospatial data which includes mapping, routing, and custom shapes that can help the end users to create customized reports that leverage existing content objects, such as queries, data regions, and charts and graphs. The users can also enhance location-based data reports with Bing Maps in Report Builder 3.0.
There are many more exiting features that I am exploring now like, the UCP (Utility Control Point) that will help the DBAs with the manageability or the MDS (Master Data Services) that helps to improve the quality of the data and many more….. If you have not explored the features of SQL Server 2008 R2 then you may do it now… Download the latest SQL Server 2008 R2 August CTP from : https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ee315247.aspx
I will get back to you soon with my articles on the SQL Server 2008 R2 features till then keep visiting my blogs and keep writing to me !