Microsoft Introduces New Offerings for Business Intelligence and Mission-Critical Workloads

SEATTLE, Nov. 9, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Today from PASS Summit 2010, Microsoft Corp. unveiled the next generation of SQL Server, Microsoft SQL Server code-named "Denali," and made available SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse. The company also announced the new Microsoft Critical Advantage Program, which provides an end-to-end experience across the complete life cycle of mission-critical appliances, such as SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse. Combined, the product and program help enterprise customers successfully design, deploy and optimize appliance-based solutions to help ensure the highest level of scalability, availability and reliability for the most demanding data warehouse requirements.

(Logo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)

(Logo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)

"Enterprises today are facing challenges of increasing volumes of data from which they need to gain business insight rapidly," said Ted Kummert, senior vice president, Business Platform Division at Microsoft. "SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse provides high-scale enterprise capabilities delivered as an appliance with choice and deployment simplicity."

SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse is pre-architected to deliver simplicity for organizations' most mission-critical data warehouse needs. The massively parallel processing architecture is pre-tuned and preconfigured to enable distributed query processing for the highest levels of performance. Microsoft is making its Parallel Data Warehouse appliance offering available to customers with choice in hardware, today in partnership with HP and in the future through other partnerships with companies such as Bull. Through deep interoperability with the Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) platform, customers can deliver managed self-service BI solutions to everyone in the organization.

The Microsoft Critical Advantage Program (MCAP) provides appliance customers with an end-to-end suite of pretested hardware and software configurations, services and support, all designed to make customers' business more efficient, cost-effective, risk-resistant and competitive. Offered as part of SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse, the program also includes a mission-critical support option with 30-minute response times, an escalation manager, a service delivery plan, enhanced critical situation process and a dedicated support engineer.

"Customers need a single view and access point to information across the enterprise without performance impact," said Paul Miller, vice president, Solutions and Strategic Alliances, Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking at HP. "HP Enterprise Data Warehouse Appliance, which is built on HP Converged Infrastructure and optimized for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse, improves data access with massive scalability and faster query times than traditional SQL Server databases."

The HP Enterprise Data Warehouse Appliance will be available through HP in December 2010. More information on SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse is available at http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver.

In addition to today's appliance news, Microsoft announced the availability of the first Community Technology Preview (CTP1) for the next version of SQL Server. Architected to help customers leverage data to meet evolving business needs, Microsoft SQL Server code-named "Denali" will feature SQL Server AlwaysOn, an integrated, high-availability solution that reduces downtime; project code-named "Crescent," a new Web-based data visualization and reporting tool that extends PowerPivot; and new capabilities for strengthened data management and integration.

The CTP1 for Microsoft SQL Server code-named "Denali" is available at http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver.

Also new today, Microsoft announced the following:

• Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) program for SQL Server. Microsoft will now offer an updated MCM program for SQL Server experts. The revised program, while maintaining a high-impact training program, also allows SQL Server experts to achieve MCM certification with more flexibility and at a lower cost compared with the previous program. The program will also increase the visibility of MCMs and reinforces their value in the market. More information is at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2010/nov10/11-09SQLServerMCM.mspx.
• Cloud servicing. Customers today can sign up for Microsoft code-named "Atlanta," a new cloud service for overseeing SQL Server configuration to ensure best operational practices. The secure cloud service can help IT proactively avoid configuration problems and rapidly resolve identified issues through step-by-step guidance. Sign-up for the service is available at http://www.microsoftatlanta.com.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.