As we get closer to the end of mainstream support for both SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 on July 8, 2014,  (which is less than six months away), I am very curious whether Microsoft is planning on releasing a SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 3 or a SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 4 ?

SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 3 was released on October 25, 2011 , and we are now up to SQL Server 2008 SP3 CU15. SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 2 was released on July 26, 2012, and we are now up to SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2 CU10.

I am not asking for release dates, just some official word on whether there will be new Service Packs for SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 R2 before they both fall out of mainstream support this July.  Since many organizations still refuse to install Cumulative Updates, we have the very strong possibility of many customers running some very old builds of SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 going forward for a long time, unless we get a final set of Service Packs for both versions.

As Paul Randal discovered in his recent survey, a very large percentage of SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 instances in the wild are already running on “unsupported service packs”, and this situation only got worse when SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 fell out of support on October 8, 2013. These links show the builds that have been released since the most recent Service Packs for SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2.

The SQL Server 2008 Builds that were released after SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 3 was released

The SQL Server 2008 R2 Builds that were released after SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 2 was released

If you want to try to influence Microsoft in some small way, please take a moment to up vote these Connect items. It only will take a few seconds to click the green arrow!

This is mine, meant to be a generic item:

https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/814658/release-final-service-packs-for-sql-server-2008-and-2008-r2

This one is from Christoph Muthmann, for SQL Server 2008 SP3:

https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/814600/release-service-pack-3-for-sql-server-2008-r2

This one is from Erland Sommarskog, regarding SQL Server 2012 SP2:

https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/814656/release-service-pack-2-for-sql-server-2012

If you have a bit more time, write a comment in any of the Connect items. Thanks for taking the time to vote and comment!

Filed under: SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2012 Tagged: SQL Server 2008 R2 SP3, SQL Server 2008 SP4, SQL Server 2012 SP2