Recently, Microsoft has announced the first public CTP (Community Technology Preview) of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2.

SQL Server 2008 R2 expands on the value delivered in SQL Server 2008 to help your organization scale with confidence and improve IT and developer efficiency with new and enhanced tools for application and multi-server management, master data services and complex event processing. The new Self Service BI capabilities will empower end users to access, integrate, analyze and share information using business intelligence tools they already know – Microsoft Office.

This is the first public CTP so it is not feature complete but it sure has enough exciting content for you to explore.

Some of the features that are in this build are:

– Application & Multi-Server Management
– Report Builder 3.0
– Scale Up with support for up to 256 logical processors

Feel free to download and start using the CTP and help to deliver yet another great product by providing your much appreciated feedback.