MS SQL 2005 Server was released after 5 servers of it previous SQL version, MS SQL 2000, Hence it required allot to revisions to cope up with the current windows development environment. Therefore MS SQL 2005 SP2 had major changes in it, with too many performances and security fixes. Microsoft could not add few revisions due to its basic development structure however they had all the scope to introduce them in SQL 2008 release. And indeed, MS SQL 2008 has many installation as well as performance fixes being applied to it and allowing Windows Administrators to have full control on SQL activities. The biggest advantage of SQL 2008 over SQL 2005 is the ability to manage and maintain server performance. SQL 2008 does not require too much resource which is the best deal for today’s Shared Hosting environment. Also an upper hand to whose to do not want to invest too much on hardware of their dedicated servers just to run SQL server on it.
I have tried to gather the major improvement introduced by Microsoft on SQL 2008 from Internet which is an advantage over SQL 2005 however it all depends on what features are useful to you in the development of your ASP .NET applications. But switching to Microsoft SQL 2008 is definitely going to improve the performance even if you don’t use any of the below feature. And not to forget that with the release of SQL 2008, Microsoft will announce “End Of Life” for SQL 2000 version, which will mean that there won’t be any official support or update release for SQL 2000.
Major difference between SQL 2005 and SQL 2008.
* Easy Upgrades: Version upgrades are now very easy and effective with SQL 2008.
* Resource Restriction Governor: We set a restriction on a users or groups from consuming high resources. This is a very good feature that can be used on Windows shared server with SQL database to maintain the performance.
* Dates and Times settings: New data types such as: Date, Time, Date Time Offset has been introduced.
* Improved Full Text Search: Ability to backup Native Indexes and also thesaurus them as metadata.
* External Key Management: This unique can store Keys separately and not with the data.
* Improved SQL Server Analysis Service: It now has improved Stacks and computes block faster.
* Improved Installation: Microsoft has added an option where you can uninstall Disk images and service packs.
* Data Synchronizing: A Development of databases used in applications that frequently get disconnected.
* Transparent Data Encrypts: It has the ability to encrypt full SQL database with different encryption Methods.
* SQL Server Integration Service: SQL 2008 Server has improved multiprocessor support and faster lookups in compare to SQL 2005.
* Change Data Capture: Allows all changes to be captured and queried. (Enterprise). Also allows us to get detailed information on what changes has happened to which rows after a specific version.
* LINQ: A Development query language for accessing multiple type of data like XML and SQL at the same time.
* Hot Plug CPU: With this feature to an add CPUs on fly for your SQL server to use.
* Microsoft Office 2007 integration: One can use MS OFFICE as an SSRS template, like SSRS to WORD.
* Spatial Data types: Data types for storing Longitude, Latitude and GPS entry of a particular database.
* MERGE: A new TSQL command as a combination Update, Insert and Delete.
* Encrypted Backups: We can execute it at the time running backups to prevent tampering from external resource.
* Data Compression: This feature is different as it allows us to manage data compression at table level to enhance performance.
* Dynamic Development: Latest Visual Studio and ADO options along with ASP .Net 3.
* Reporting Server Performance: Unlike in SQL 2005 we can set threshold on Reporting server for memory management.
* Performance Studio: It is a Gallery that has collection of monitoring tools enhanced performance.
* Audits: A very power feature for monitoring the data access of your SQL database.
* Table Value Parameters: SQL 2008 database has ability to insert entire table into a stored procedure.
* Entity Database Services: (LOB) Line Of Business framework and (eSQL) Entity Query Language.
No doubt that Microsoft has improved all the features that has been used by hosting services. Even SQL Cluster in version 2008 has few major advantages since every one in today world wants to have their site up all the time with 100% uptime. I hope I get some time to write on “MS SQL 2008 Clustering..“