By Haidong Ji
SQL Server 2008 will be released in the first half of 2008, about six months from now, so it's time for me to get a good feel of the new features and enhancements in this exciting new release. Fortunately, Microsoft TechNet provides a series of webcasts to get us started, beginning with Going Beyond Relational Data with Microsoft SQL Server 2008.
One of the exciting features in SQL Server 2008 is its enhancement to manage non-relational data such as documents, image files, and other media data. I can see more usage of this feature as more and more in our lives becomes digitized, and they need to be stored somewhere!
The presenter really did a good job describing how SQL Server 2008 fits together with other products such as Office Servers, BizTalk, and Visual Studio. You have to watch it yourself to find out more details.
I like how data of all different format and size can be managed using SQL Server 2008, even including geo-spatial data, which can be really useful, especially with today’s ubiquitous presence of mobile technology.
I also like the flexibility of being able to store documents and multimedia data in different servers. Once again, you’ve got to watch the webcast yourself to find out some details.
The presenter then offered further discussion on FILESTREAM and remote BLOB storage.
TIP: One really neat thing is that you can choose to dedicate all non-relational data on either remote storage or in file system.
The demo on FILESTREAM is really great. Some simple code really demonstrated the power of managing files in the file system.
I really like the new spatial data support. This new feature has the potential to drastically increase regular user’s experience with your sites or products.
It is really nice to learn SQL Server 2008’s feature set for non-relational data. The Going Beyond Relational Data with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 webcast is a really quick way to get up to speed in this great new development.