Programming Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2008

SQL Server 2008 and Data Warehousing

Earlier versions of SQL Server had new features related to data warehousing, most notably Analysis Services, Reporting Services, and in SQL Server 2005, certain features of SQL Server Integration Services such as the Slowly Changing Dimensions task. But these earlier versions had very little at the level of the relational engine specifically targeting the particular needs of data warehousing. SQL Server 2008 delivers new features that squarely target data warehousing, particularly in relation to making very large databases more manageable and cost effective. This section will review the most important of the data warehousing–oriented enhancements in SQL Server 2008, starting with the Transact-SQL (T-SQL) enhancements ...