Is it time to upgrade to SQL server 2008

I always tend to wait for SP1 to be released before tempting to upgrade prodution servers to new editions of SQL server. Now the CTP for Service Pack 1 of SQL Server 2008 is out, is it the time to upgrade ?

Project Madison

Project Madison is Microsoft’s collaborative hardware and software solution for high-end data warehousing. It looks that microsoft is moving agressively into the data warehouseing market. For detailed info on what project Madison you can see the overview @ more on project Madison

Data Warehousing (SQL server 2008)

I have heard many times that SQL Server 2008 is revamped in the area of data
warehousing. In trying to find out what the major areas that can support data warehouse that is different from SQL server 2005 I came accross the following new features in SQL server 20008.

Apart from the new features that is part of the SQL server release I think the following are the highlights in my opinion.

- Star join query optimizations
- Grouping sets
- MERGE SQL statements
- Change data capture
are the once that catch my eyes.

For detailed info on new features you can view at Introduction to New Data Warehouse Scalability Features in SQL Server 2008 - Technical article

SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse

On 23rd of Feb 2008, icrosoft announced SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse, a new set of Reference Architectures for SQL Server 2008 that enables customers to accelerate their Data Warehouse deployments and reduce cost.

I would like to hear anybody who have got experience with this. The hightlight of this annoncement is that customers will be able to start data warehouse design with templates provided by Avanade, Hitachi Consulting and Cognizant and HP. Once I looked at them I will love to post how good/user friendly it is and how good the templates are at helping you in acheiving a data warehouse that satisfies your specific business needs.

As per the anouncement the the highlights are I qoute "

Seven new Reference Architectures with storage capacities from 4 to 32 TB were unveiled in partnership with HP, Dell and Bull. Developed and tested by Microsoft, these architectures use balanced hardware optimized for Data Warehousing. As a result customers will get

* Better price performance than competitive solutions. Fast Track Data Warehouse offers similar performance to the competition at 1/5th the price
* Faster time to value and lower cost to setup and configure
* Better performance out of box through pre-tested hardware.