The service pack 1 for all seven editions of its SQL Server 2008 was released by Microsoft on Tuesday. The SQL Server 2008 is Microsoft's relational database management system that uses Transact-SQL as its primary query language.

According to Microsoft, the Microsoft Download Center is offering the update in three versions - 32-bit, 64-bit, and ia64. The service pack 1 is the release of previous cumulative updates and has no new features.

Microsoft notified three main improvements including Slipstream, Service Pack Uninstall, and Report Builder 2.0 Click Once. According to the software maker, Slipstream lets administrators install SQL Server 2008 and Service Pack 1 in a single instance. It reduces installation time, causes lesser number of reboots, and consequently boosts productivity and deployment availability.

According to Microsoft, Service Pack Uninstall lets administrators remove the service pack separately from the database release. It boosts DBA productivity, cuts the cost of deployment and betters overall supportability, and Report Builder 2.0 Click Once ameliorates the existing SQL Server end-user report authoring application by easing deployment to business users.

Microsoft claimed that there have been "over three million downloads" of SQL Server 2008, up to now. The SQL Server 2008 hit the RTM (Release to Manufacturing) in August 2008. The CTP (Community Technology Preview) of the service pack 1 was rolled out in February.

Meanwhile, the launch of the HP PolyServe software for Microsoft SQL Server has been declared by the HP StorageWorks division. The HP PolyServe software offers business class availability and virtualization-like flexibility in a utility platform for customers. It helps businesses to cut cost of the SQL server and steps up operational speed. Adding more processing power, the HP PolyServe software offers high availability, instance mobility, and management automation required for mission-critical databases.

Prakash Krishnamoorthy, Country Manager-StorageWorks Division, Technology Solutions Group, HP India, said, "HP PolyServe software for Microsoft SQL servers offers customers a highly available, flexible, simple approach to SQL Server consolidation. HP PolyServe software will help businesses realize greater value from their existing IT investments, capitalize on next-generation technologies and achieve business outcomes."

"With the introduction, of the HP PolyServe software, we can now deploy MS SQL Server that can flex capacity to need, reduce capital costs, improve availability and dramatically simplify management. The solution goes beyond just consolidation to provide scalable capacity allocation, on-the-fly instance mobility making it the ideal solution for database consolidation," said Pallavi Kathuria, Director-Server Business Group, Microsoft India.

Speaking of the benefits of the HP PolyServe software for SQL Server, the Head Global IT Infrastructure, Aditya Birla Minacs, Vikrant Chaudhuri said, "With HP PolyServe for SQL Server, we were able to easily deliver 24x7 High availability and improved scalability with load balancing across our SQL Server database instances for mission critical application workloads. This solution also allowed us to improve utilization of our hardware, reduce power, cooling, rack space costs and provide easier management of large number of SQL Server instances. We are now able to quickly deploy new application workloads thereby helping us improve time to market, without worrying about the supporting infrastructure."