Taking Your Database beyond Relations with SQL Server 2008

Company Named Blue Dasher Technology.  Presented a really cool demo of what they do.   Basically software that finds locations and then can give you a virtual ride on the road past a location.  Great for real estate, but not a great fit for Weston because it requires more technology than we have. 

• Filestreams – store data in the file system but have the ability to access the files from the SQL Server 2008 database.  There are specific steps to enable this process.  Not a great fit for us because it has the greatest cost per GB of data.   Bottom-line: we should continue to do things the way we are currently doing them with files like photos etc…
• The Full-Text index and search is now fully inside of SQL Server as opposed to the way it was in SQL 2000.  This creates better performance.
• Fully supported geometry and geography attributes of the Varbinary(MAX) data types.   Interesting stuff, but require a specific need on our part to delve into further. 
• XML Updgrade – they have made some upgrades to XML which I would list here if my battery was not about to run out.  Can hit the Tech-Ed site later for the instructor’s slides.