New RS features in SQL Server 2005 Beta 2

For those of you who would like to know what new RS features have made it to SQL Server 2005 Beta 2, here is the list:

• Ability to load report projects in the new SQL Server 2005 Intelligence Development Studio IDE. The consequence of this is important. You don’t have to purchase VS.NET anymore just to get the Report Designer because the Intelligence Studio IDE comes bundled with the Report Designer.
• Integration with the SQL Server Management Studio. The third toolbar button on the Registered Servers toolbox brings to the RS configuration. Now you have a single console to connect and manage the RS configuration properties, security, jobs and shared schedules.
• The Analysis Services MDX and DMX Query Designers that allow you to craft MDX and data mining queries in a graphical way. Those of you targeting Microsoft Analysis Services will probably appreciate these two designers. Both designers operate in design and query modes similar to the Graphical and Generic Query Designers included in version 1.0. When used in Graphical mode, the designers allow you to drag and drop dimensions and measures to the query pane to make the tedious task of authoring MDX queries much easier. In addition, Analysis Services 2005 supports parameterized MDX queries and you can declare any dimension member as parameterized. If you have time to play with SQL Server Beta 2, check the new query designers. They really rock!

The rest of the RS new features will be included in SQL Server Beta 3 scheduled to be released around Q2 2005.

I highly recommend you start evaluating SQL Server 2005 as soon as you can. There are so many new and cool features that it may take you months to go over them. On the downside, you need a beefed up testing machine. Based on my experience, the Beta 2 performance is far from being optimized. Loading the Books Online, Management and Intelligence Studio pretty much take up all of the 700 MB of RAM allocated to my Virtual PC. Ouch!

If you need community support, check out the SQL Server 2005 newsgroups at http://communities.microsoft.com/newsgroups/default.asp?icp=sqlserver2005 .

Happy yukoning!