Microsoft announced the immediate availability of the first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of SQL Server 2008 at TechEd 2007 in Orlando, Florida on June 4, 2007. A CTP release is a downloadable preview of a product that users can work with in a test environment to try out the new features before the actual product is released. During the product development cycle there will typically be several CTP releases.

SQL Server 2008 is built around the following technology themes:
• Mission Critical Platform for All – SQL Server 2008 will provide a more secure, reliable and manageable enterprise data platform, including an innovative, policy-based declarative management framework allowing administrators to define policies to be enforced across all database servers.
• Redefining Pervasive Insight – SQL Server 2008 will provide a more scalable infrastructure for business intelligence and empower users to easily consume data via increased integration with Microsoft Office.
• Beyond Relational – SQL Server 2008 will enable developers and administrators to store and consume any type of data from XML to documents, including a new spatial data type for map-based applications and a new integrated transactional file system to allow storing large database objects directly in the file system.
• Dynamic Development for Data Management Solutions – SQL Server 2008 will provide an integrated development environment with Visual Studio and the Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.0, accelerating development with a higher level of data abstraction with a new entity-based framework.

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