Microsoft releases preview of SP1 for SQL Server 2005
Microsoft Wednesday released a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the upcoming Service Pack 1 for its SQL Server 2005 database.
New features in SP1 include full database mirroring to offer real-time data backups and SQL Server Management Studio Express, which is designed to help database administrators run the free version of SQL Server 2005, according to Ilya Bukshteyn, Microsoft's director of product management for SQL Server. SP1 is on schedule for final release next month.
This is the first CTP ever released for SQL Server or its Service Packs. Microsoft, which has traditionally released between one and three beta versions of a software product before its final release, has moved toward CTPs -- which arrive very two to three months -- for certain products, including SQL Server, Visual Studio and the client version of the Windows operating system, said Bukshteyn.
He acknowledged that Microsoft was partially inspired by the success of the open-source model of software development. "The thing that is very powerful is being open and transparent with the community," Bukshteyn said.
More than 50 companies are already using SQL Server's database mirroring, which was available in the initial release of SQL Server 2005 in November. It was not considered production-ready at that time.
