Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed- P168:SQL Server 2005 provided a number of significant new features and enhancements over what was available in SQL Server 2000. This is not too surprising considering there was a five-year gap between these major SQL Server 2008 is not as much of a quantum leap forward from SQL Server 2005 | 1614 CHAPTER 42 What s New for Transact-SQL in SQL Server 2008 declare @smallBox GEOMETRY polygon 0 0 0 2 2 2 2 0 0 0 declare @largeBox GEOMETRY 1polygon 1 1 1 4 4 4 4 1 1 1 declare @line GEOMETRY linestring 0 2 4 4 select @smallBox union all select @largeBox union all select @ @largeBox union all select @line Spatial Data Types Where to Go from Here The preceding sections provide only a brief introduction to spatial data types and how to work with geometry and geography data. For more information on working with spatial data in addition to Books Online you might want to visit the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Spatial Data page at http sqlserver 2008 en us . This page provides links to whitepapers and other technical documents related to working with spatial data in SQL Server 2008. In addition all examples here deal with spatial data only as data values and coordinates. Spatial data is often most useful when it can be displayed visually such as on a map. SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services provides new map controls and a map wizard for creating map reports based on spatial data. For more information see Chapter 53 SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services. Change Data Capture In SQL Server 2008 Microsoft introduced a new feature called Change Data Capture CDC which is designed to make it much easier and less resource intensive to identify and retrieve changed data from tables in an online transaction processing OLTP database. In a nutshell CDC captures and records INSERT UPDATE and DELETE activity in an OLTP database and stores it in a form that is easily consumed by an application such as a SQL Server Integration Services SSIS package. In the past capturing data changes for your tables for auditing or extract transform and load ETL purposes required using replication time stamp columns triggers complex queries or expensive third-party tools. None of these other methods are easy to implement and many of them use a .
