Microsoft has released two new Cumulative Updates for SQL Server 2008 SP1 and SQL Server 2008 SP2. The first one is SQL Server 2008 SP1 Cumulative Update 14, which is Build 2821. This CU has only ten fixes.

The second one is SQL Server 2008 SP2 Cumulative Update 4, which is Build 4285. This CU has 21 fixes. Remember, neither one of these has anything to do with SQL Server 2008 R2, which is a completely different major release (at least according to Microsoft).

Personally, I try to stay current with Cumulative Updates as much as possible, rather than waiting for SQL Server Service Packs, which are released too infrequently for my taste. I like to have a routine where I regularly service my SQL Server instances in terms of Windows Updates, SQL Server Cumulative Updates or Service Packs, and hardware updates (such as firmware updates, BIOS updates, and driver updates).

With some careful planning, you can combine all of this activity into a regular maintenance window. If you have a high availability solution in place, such as fail-over clustering, database mirroring, or AlwaysOn technology (in SQL Server Denali), you can do “rolling updates” to minimize your downtime when doing this type of maintenance. This also lets you practice and validate your failover procedures. Its better to find out you have problems with failovers during a maintenance window than to find out in an emergency.