As promised Microsoft released SQL Server 2008 R2 SP3 last Friday, and now this is your opportunity to test and patch all the existing SQLServer 2008 R2 to this latest build.

SP3 will be the last and final service pack for SQL Server 2008 R2 ,and it will be a good idea to patch your servers just because the mainstream support for 2008 R2 is already finished. Yes, you heard that right mainstream support for SQLServer 2008 R2 ended on 7/8/2014.

You might want to get onto extended support if you don’t have solid plans to upgrade to SQLServer 2012/SQLServer 2014 (Or probably just skip SQL Server 2012 and go to 2014).

So what’s mainstream support and extended support?

Mainstream Support –

Mainstream support means Microsoft supports a product with its full offerings including paid incident support, hot-fix support, security updates, etc.

Extended Support –

Microsoft still provides security updates at no charge to all customers.

You can still call CSS or create a case online per the normal support offerings (Pay per incident, Premier, etc.)

You cannot obtain a non-security hot-fix from Microsoft free of charge. In order to obtain a non-security hot-fix, we must purchase an Extended Hot fix Support Agreement.

Extended Hot fix Support Agreements are available for Premier customers.

What’s covered in SP3 – Contains fixes from all Cumulative Updates that were released since SP2 for SQL Server 2008 R2, i.e. till SP2 CU13.

It also contains 2 additional fixes and you can read them here.

If you are on an extended support agreement and you open a case with Microsoft, then probably the first thing they are going to ask is if you are running SP3 or not?  So test this build real hard and plan to deploy it across the enterprise

OR

Upgrade to SQLServer 2014 for lot of goodness!

Thanks for reading and keep watching this space for more!