July CTP of SQL Server 2008 Is Out

July CTP of SQL Server 2008 (Katmai) is out. On the BI side of things:

  1. New SSRS Report Engine
    “Improvements represent the two major infrastructure changes for Reporting Services. Reporting Services enhances the processing engine and rendering extensions to enable new functionality, such as Tablix support, and scalability as well as remove the dependency on IIS. Additionally, new report designer and configuration tool are provided that improve usability and workflow for RS customers.”
  2. Analysis Services Time Series
    This improvement adds a new time series forecasting algorithm (ARIMA: Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average) to the data mining algorithm suite that provides more stable long term predictions.