July 12, 2009 at 8:50 am
I'm an intermediate Production DBA and busy writing a business case to upgrade from SQL Server 2005 to 2008, but struggle to find any 2008 features that makes upgrading to SQL Server 2008 a MUST. Yes, there are many "nice to have" features but none of them are MUSTS with the exception of (1)Maintaining Mainstream Support. I want to know about features that can justify the business costs and effort(time) for upgrading to 2008.
I'm more interested in PRACTICAL features that can improve DBA productivity and efficiency (manageability), environment security, increased performance , increased availability, standardization and documentation. Can you help to list some of the features which you think are MUSTS for now. The details about how each feature works and how to practically implement it will follow at a later stage. Your assistance will be highly appreciated.
July 12, 2009 at 9:08 am
Like the majority of answers "It depends" I would suggest reading
1. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2008.04.overview.aspx
which discusses new features in SQL 2008. You can then select those features which directly impact your situation and hopefully attach cost savings to those sufficient enough to justify the expenditure for SQL 2008.
2. Google for additional blog entries, white papers, etc.
July 12, 2009 at 11:37 am
Thank you for your prompt response Bitbucket, I found it very useful, especially the technet link you provided.
Here are some of the features, I've included:
Improved Productivity and efficiency - Management Studio Improvements (e.g. Multi-Server Queries,new Activity Monitor, Object Search,Intellisense)
Standardization - Policy-Based Management
Improved Efficiency(save disk costs)- Data and Backup Compression (still don't know why Microsoft didn't make it compatible with TDE)
Improved Performance - Resource Governor and Performance Data Collector (performance baselining and reporting)
Improved Security - Transparent Data Encryption(TDE) and SQL Server Audit
Improved Availability - DB Mirroring and Clustering Improvements, Change Data Capture.
Ease of Documentation - ???? e.g. automatic documentation (is there such a feature?)
Scalability - ??? (Any?)
Are there any practical features that you personally see as being important enough to justify 2008 upgrade? I know that it depends per environment but I'd like to know which ones are applicable to YOU.
Thanks again, looking forward to your response.
July 12, 2009 at 4:01 pm
kopajb
Being a developer rather than a true DBA. Sort of inherited the job when my employer did not see the need to increase staffing. So I fumble and bumble along and at best might be termed an accidental dba. I justified SQL Server when an existing Access db with multiple million row tables, just stopped working. Management sort of lost it and jumped at any chance to meet contractual requirements, and besides, if my idea did not work they could pass the blame down to this peon.
Searching here at SSC will also provide you with many, additional reasons for justifying the acquisition of 2008.
As far as documentation is concerned here is a great script by Lowell that I discovered just yesterday.
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic751633-338-1.aspx.
Further BOL is another great source what with dynamic management views (DMVs) and system views.
System Views (Transact-SQL)
ms-help://MS.SQLCC.v9/MS.SQLSVR.v9.en/tsqlref9/html/35a6161d-7f43-4e00-bcd3-3091f2015e90.htm
Reading what these objects can do for you will add to your presentation.
Sorry I can not be of any further significant assistance.
July 12, 2009 at 5:57 pm
I'm not sure that there is a business reason to upgrade to 2008 from 2005. There aren't a lot of new features, and the new ones, for the most part (resource governor, PBM, etc.) are 1.0 features. Not sure they're worth upgrading too.
If they will help you in your environment, I'd still wait for SQL Server 2008 R2 next year (when they'll have some more fixed incorporated) or SQL 11.
July 15, 2009 at 1:34 am
And unless you are running the enterprise edition, alot of the fancy stuff just won't be available to you.
For example: Backup compression, data compression, resource governor and hot-add memory and CPU support (though i dont have the stomach for that last one anyways)
if you are looking at the enterprise edition, then forget what i said 🙂
January 5, 2010 at 3:27 pm
I have a two person operation with no dedicated IT staff. We are a physician practice management firm that uses a third party software package that requires an sql server to operate. We have been using SQL 2000 for at least 5 years and are about to replace our server hardware to avoid any breakdown issues. We plan to upgrade the server OS to 2008 from 2000 for obvious reasons. I have never needed to contact MS for support, it has just worked. There is never more than one client accessing the SQL server. The database is less than 2 gigs. Should I upgrade to 2008 express?
Thanks
Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply