Ten Reasons to Choose Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 Enterprise

TEN REASONS TO CHOOSE MICROSOFT®

SQL SERVER®

2008 R2 ENTERPRISE

SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise delivers a comprehensive data

platform that provides built-in security, availability, and scale

coupled with robust business intelligence offerings—helping

enable high service levels for mission-critical workloads.

Reduce costs through server consolidation

Reduce the number of physical servers in your enterprise by

consolidating databases onto fewer machines, and benefit

from reduced costs, improved control over your systems, and

a reduced carbon footprint1.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise can take advantage of up to

eight processors with no limit to the number of processor

cores and it supports up to 2 TB of memory, making it

possible to host multiple databases on a server without

compromising performance and scalability. You can isolate

databases by installing multiple instances on a single server

and provide predictable performance across multiple

database workloads within an instance by using Resource

Governor to define hardware resource limits for individual

workloads.

Save on hardware and software costs with virtualization

With Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V™, you can consolidate

database servers to create virtual data centers that reduce

costs and help maximize the value of your software

investment. SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise licensing is

flexible; it allows for up to four virtual database servers on a

single licensed physical server, and there are no restrictions

on moving virtual servers between licensed host machines.

SQL Server Sysprep enables you to create a library of VHDs,

ready to be deployed as and when required. This is a major

benefit for larger organizations with multiple VMs because it

speeds up provisioning and increases business agility.

Lower storage costs through Data and Backup

Compression

SQL Server Data and Backup Compression help to reduce

hardware costs, optimize storage, and improve I/O

performance. Customers have achieved space savings of up

to 90 percent with Data Compression4 and up to 66 percent

with Backup Compression5 Benefit from even greater savings

with SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise’s support for UCS-2

Unicode compression.

Increase business continuity

SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise provides enterprise-class high

availability through database mirroring and up to 16-node

server clustering capabilities, enabling you to save hardware

costs by supporting multiple, redundant SQL Server

instances in a single cluster.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise also fully supports Windows

Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Live Migration, which enables you to

move virtual machines between host servers without

interrupting service provision. Use Live Migration to

minimize planned downtime and make more efficient use of

resources (for example, you can move a reporting application

to a higher-powered host at the end of each month). SQL

Server 2008 R2 Enterprise further promotes high availability

through online indexing and restore operations and hot-add

and hot-replace CPU and memory capabilities — reducing

The data compression feature in SQL Server 2008 [Enterprise Edition] has significantly reduced the amount of storage required. On average, the customer is reducing storage space by 50%... The result is that no storage needs to be added to support the SQL Server databases for the next three years.

Forrester3

Consolidation on a truly scalable platform, such as the HP Integrity line of servers, not only can deliver positive economic advantages in the short term, but can position organizations for lower operating costs, and improved service delivery for years to come.

Alinean 2

This data sheet is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation.

planned downtime and keeping your business-critical

applications available more of the time.

Optimize business processes with high performance and

scalability

SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise enables you to improve

performance through table and index partitioning, query

parallelism, scalable shared database deployments, and

enhanced read-ahead and scan capabilities. Improving the

performance of line-of-business applications and customer-

facing Web applications results in greater productivity and

transaction throughput.

Reduce compliance and security costs with enterprise

security

Remove the need for third-party encryption and auditing

solutions, and help secure data without impacting existing

applications. With SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, you can

use SQL Server Audit to capture detailed information about

data access, Transparent Database Encryption (TDE) to

encrypt data without modifying applications, and simplify

and consolidate encryption and key management through

support for third-party cryptographic providers.

Increase DBA productivity with enterprise manageability

Simplify multi-server management and reduce the cost of

maintaining servers in data centers with centralized

management and policy-based configuration.

Utility Control Point enables dashboard and drill-down views

of instance and application utilization on up to 25 server

instances across the enterprise, and you can also use Central

Management Servers to run administrative scripts to manage

multiple servers.

Policy-based management enables you to proactively define

configuration policies and apply them to multiple SQL Server

instances and databases to ensure enterprise-wide

compliance with minimal administrative overhead.

Centralize reporting and data analysis with data

warehousing

Improve business efficiency by creating a single,

consolidated data warehouse for business analytics and

reporting. SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise provides a highly

scalable data warehouse platform with performance-

enhancing features, such as star join query optimizations,

parallel query execution for partitioned tables and indexes,

and automatic change data capture.

The Fast Track program provides new reference

configurations from key hardware partners for creating high-

performance data warehouses of up to 48 TB with SQL

Server 2008 R2 Enterprise.

Gain business efficiencies through self-service business

intelligence (BI)

SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise includes a full business

intelligence suite with enterprise-scale features. Use Master

Data Services to improve operational and reporting

consistency and to clean and standardize data across the

enterprise, ensuring that you have a single standardized

version of your data. Use Analysis Services to provide rich,

scalable analytics, and use Data-Mining Add-Ins for Office

2007 to provide information workers and decision makers

with direct access to reliable business insights. Use Reporting

Services and a suite of self-service BI features to deliver

business insights across the enterprise. The PowerPivot Add-

In for Microsoft Office Excel® 2010 gives users the ability to

perform complex data analyses using a familiar tool, and

PowerPivot for SharePoint 2010 enables sharing and

collaboration between data workers. Report Builder 3.0 puts

the ability to create sophisticated and powerful reports firmly

in the hands of the people who need it most.

Maximize ROI through platform interoperability and

compatibility

Get more value from your existing applications and gain

business efficiencies through interoperability. Take

advantage of support for replication from Oracle publishers,

build analysis and data mining solutions with Office Excel,

and deliver business insights from Analysis Services and

Reporting Services through Microsoft Office SharePoint®

Server.

LEARN MORE:

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/enterprise.aspx

Using Excel as an interface for Self-Service BI, we are modeling, analyzing and pivoting millions of records in memory and publish it to SharePoint in few minutes and other people being able to access it from a URL. It is fast and easy.

Ayad Shammount, Caregroup

A Microsoft Dynamics CRM benchmark run on IBM System x3650 M2 servers with Intel Solid State Drives demonstrated 20,000 concurrent users across 20 xRM applications on Microsoft Dynamics CRM with an average response time of 0.10 seconds.

SQL Server News6

1 http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/9/D/69D1FEA7-5B42-437A-B3BA-

A4AD13E34EF6/SQLServer2008Consolidation.docx

2. http://hp.bellmicro.eu/downloads/HP_Alinean_ServerConsolidation_with_SQL_on_Integrity_CaseStudy.pdf

3. http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/1/1/d11349b8-af33-45c4-a89c-

f0dc64bbd431/TEI%20of%20SQL%20Server%202008%20Upgrade.pdf

4. http://www.microsoft.com/Casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?casestudyid=4000003962

5. http://www9.unisys.com/eprise/main/admin/corporate/doc/41371394.pdf

6. http://blogs.technet.com/dataplatforminsider/archive/2009/11/03/enterprise-scalability-one-focus-for-pass-2009-

summit.aspx