New features in SQL Server SP2

SQL Server Service Pack 2 has been released. You can download it from here. You must also download updated books online from that page.

As I installed and reviewed the features, I have seen interesting new features which could change our database designs. Some of the features were necessary improvements.

Maintenace Plan Features

• SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services) is not required for executing maintenance plans. Database services handle execution.
• You can define multiple schedules for the maintenance subplans.
• Maintenance plans for multiple servers can be defined.

Database Engine Features

• A new data type vardecimal has been provided for minimizing the disk space, needed to store existing decimal and numeric data types. By using this new data type, large amount of the disk space can be saved, if decimal or numeric columns with high precision used, but most values in that columns do not require many digits of precision.

Management Studio

• Users can now integrate their own custom management reports into Management Studio.

You can read more information about the new features in the SQL Server 2005 SP2 from here.