Service pack 2 released today to the public in CTP format and can be downloaded here: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/ctp.mspx.
Along with bug fixes, there are tons of new features. What impressed me most was I was able to install the SP without a reboot!
Vista/Office Fixes:
- Support for the upcoming Windows Vista.
- Data Mining Add-Ins for Office 2007, which enables data mining functionality from SSAS to be used directly within Excel 2007 and Visio 2007.
- SSRS integration with MOSS 2007, which allows integration with the Report Center in SharePoint providing seamless consumption and management of SSRS reports within SharePoint.
- SSAS improvements for Excel 2007 and Excel Services relating to performance and functionality.
Heterogeneous Environments (Interoperability):
- Oracle Support in Report Builder. Users will now be able to use Report Builder on top of Oracle data sources.
- Hyperion support with SSRS. Organizations will now be able to use SSRS to build reports on top of Hyperion Essbase cubes.
Performance/Enterprise:
- Data compression (varDecimal), which is important for data warehouse scenarios and is specifically important for SAP BW scenarios. This requires less disk storage of decimal data which increases overall performance.
- Manageability enhancements. Based on customer feedback, SQL Server provides enhanced management capabilities for DBAs such as improvements in database maintenance plans, enhanced management reports and a new copy database wizard.