Microsoft released the February CTP of SQL Server 2008 on February 8th. This is a feature complete CTP which includes all of the functionality planned for the release. Some of the most anticipated features:

  • Data Compression. Reduces storage and manageability cost and provides significant performance improvements.
  • Policy Based Management. Includes policy violation alerts, policy import, the ability to run and evaluate multiple simultaneous policies, view the facets and evaluate policies when Object Explorer is connected to Analysis Services and Reporting Services, and more.
  • Integrated Full Text Search. This makes the transition between Full-Text Search and relational data seamless while enabling the use of full-text indexes to perform high-speed text searches on large text columns.

Download the CTP directly from Microsoft here - http://www.microsoft.com/sql/2008/prodinfo/download.mspx