It’s no secret that SQL Server 2008 has come too
soon for most SQL Server customers. Many of
the organizations that I’ve talked with are still in
the process of deploying SQL Server 2005. For
those businesses, a few delays in the final SQL
Server 2008 code release are actually good news.
However, when SQL Server 2008 is released later
this year, many of those businesses will have a decision
to make: Should they migrate from SQL
Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005, or should they
jump directly to SQL Server 2008?
From 2000 to 2008
At this year’s TechEd 2008 IT Professionals, Sheila
Molnar, lead editor for SQL Server Magazine, and
I asked Fausto Ibarra, a director of product management
for SQL Server at Microsoft, this question,
as well as a few others. Ibarra explained that
in the past, Microsoft has advocated migrating
from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005 because
SQL Server 2008 wasn’t ready and the upgrade to
SQL Server 2005 would let organizations take advantage
of the immediate business value that SQL
Server offers.
However, after SQL Server 2008 is released,
customers could migrate directly to SQL Server
2008. Ibarra pointed out that migrating from SQL
Server 2000 to SQL Server 2008 will be a fully supported
scenario. Customers who are still running
SQL Server 2000 will be able to migrate directly to
SQL Server 2008 without first having to upgrade
to SQL Server 2005. This is welcome news not only
for those customers who are considering migrating
from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005 in the
near future, but also for those who won’t be ready
to migrate from SQL Server 2000 for some time.
New Features
SQL Server 2008 is an especially compelling release
for customers still running SQL Server 2000
because it includes all the functionality found in
SQL Server 2005, in addition to many new features.
After you’ve run SQL Server 2005 for awhile,
it’s easy to take for granted some of its important
enhancements. SQL Server 2005 introduced support for SQLCLR and database mirroring, not
to mention new major subsystems such as SQL
Server Integration Services, SQL Server Reporting
Services, and SQL Server Service Broker. SQL
Server 2008 includes an impressive collection of
new features as well as a majority of the features
that were originally planned for SQL Server 2005
but were cut from that release because of resource
and/or time constraints.
Some of the features that SQL Server 2008
brings to the table are database compression and
database backup compression; transparent data
encryption; new date, time, and spatial data types;
and a new FILESTREAM data type. Other important
SQL Server 2008 features include the Resource
Governor, which manages resource allocation
for long-running queries, and Policy-based
Management, which lets you enforce database and
server standards across all the SQL Server 2008
systems in your organization.
Make the Jump
If you’re still running SQL Server 2000, next year
will be a great time to make the jump to SQL
Server 2008. Direct migration is fully supported by
Microsoft, and SQL Server 2008 will offer many
new features that can bring a lot of value to your
business.