The company plans to release new service packs for both SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2005. Service Pack 2 for SQL Server 2008 will be released sometime in the third quarter of this year. Microsoft plans to release Service Pack 4 for SQL Server 2005 in the fourth quarter of this year.
The release of SP4 for SQL Server 2005 likely will be the last service pack for this product, according to Matthias Berndt, group program manager for Microsoft SQL Server, in a blog post. SQL Server 2005 will enter its five-year "extended support" phase on April 13, 2011. During the extended support phase, Microsoft drops support associated with licensing programs, as well as no-charge support, although security updates will continue to be delivered. The details are described at the Microsoft support lifecycle page.
Longtime Microsoft watcher Mary-Jo Foley claimed in a story posted on Tuesday that Berndt revealed "Denali" to be the code name for the next version of Microsoft's relational database management system after SQL Server 2008 R2 (which is code-named "Kilimanjaro"). However, at press time, that name was missing from Berndt's blog post. Possibly, it was a mistake that was corrected, as Foley herself acknowledges that Microsoft has used Denali before as a code name for Active Server Pages.
A compendium of Microsoft product lifecycle support dates, produced by an exiting Microsoft employee, predicted that SQL Server 2011 will be released to manufacturers on July 1, 2011. That list may or may not be accurate for Microsoft products yet to be announced. However, at least one item tracks fairly closely; Microsoft has confirmed that it will release SQL Server 2008 R2 in May of this year and the list shows an RTM date for that product of "Tuesday, June 1, 2010."
In other SQL Server news, Microsoft released its "SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Training Kit" earlier this month. The kit includes a number of resources for developers, such as demos, hands-on labs, presentations and videos. It's supported on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 and works with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate 2010 Beta 2.
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