Thoughts on SQL Server 2008 release

It appears as though Microsoft has officially released SQL Server 2008, which made me think about all the hoopla when SQL 2005 was released. I attended the September 2005 PASS user's conference in Dallas, TX, and of course, most of the attention was on the upcoming release of SQL 2005.

At the time, SQL 2000 was already 5 years old, and therefore there was much anticipation about the new release. At the time of the conference, I had not yet used any of the beta releases of SQL 2005, so I didn't know much about it. I can remember receiving a beta dvd at the conference, and then it taking 2 hours to install it on my laptop that night. Needless to say, it was obvious there were alot of changes from 2000 to 2005, including the longer installation time. The most striking difference to me though, was the all the new "subsystems" of SQL Server 2005, including Analysis Services, Integration Services, Reporting Services, etc. It was difficult enough for a DBA to master the database engine, but now, one had to master all these different aspects of SQL Server.

Anyway, I've looked at SQL 2008 some, and it appears as though the changes from 2005 to 2008 are not nearly as drastic as from 2000 to 2005. It looks like the database engine and user tools are largely the same except for new features and improvement. It doesn't appear as though there are any new subsystems, so hopefully the learning curve for SQL 2008 will be easier that SQL 2005.