Here are some highlights of things that will be offered with SQL Server 2008:

  • Activity Monitor for the DBA: Finally a way to see, in an easy to use UI, information related to active sessions, wait states, file I/O, long running queries, etc… Oh, and you can launch Profiler from here as well.
  • Object Search: Users can now enter full or partial search strings to match on in the current database and results will be displayed in the new Object Explorer Details pane.
  • Intellisense: We all know what this is… It’s coming to Management Studio to aid in writing queries with the red squiggles and all!
  • Customizable Tabs: The query editor’s results can now have their tabs set with customized names
  • Launch Profiler: The option is now available to launch Profiler from within a query editor results window and it will automatically tie Profiler to the SPID of the query.
  • Permissions editing: The screens have been reworked to reduce the amount of clicks to set permissions
  • Performance Studio: A new offering that tracks historical performance metrics from SQL Server and the operating system by storing results in a repository that offers drill-through reporting.
  • Register servers once in a central location
  • Management Studio adds a new GUI to manage/create table partitions.
  • And finally (as far as my list and this article is concerned)….. A T-SQL Debugger in Management Studio.