SQL Kit

SSAS 2008 has improved Dimension and Aggregation Designer, new Attribute Relationship Designer, Optimize performance with block computations mode and dynamic management views for enhanced resource monitoring.SSRS 2008 reports has the unique data format of Tablix which allows writing reports with combined advantage of Table and Matrix formats. It can integrate with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for central delivery and management of business insight. It also enables users to quickly gain insight into complex sets of data by displaying data graphically with enhanced visualization capabilities. Performance has improved drastically for situations where you are generating large reports.

SSIS Pipeline is optimized to enable more parallel loading of data. You can write script components in C# now. It comes with improved scalability with thread pooling and enhanced lookup transformations. It also performs more functional and scalable data transfers with the improved SQL Server Import and Export Wizard.

Other engine features that you need to be aware of are, improvements to partitioning, change data capture to enable easy extraction of changed data from a production system, backup and table compression which enables better performance and less storage space utilisation. It also comes with optimized Star-Join, improved lock escalation handling, Merge statements and other advanced T SQL enhancements.

The slides and demos are available here for download.