Data Governance Learning Plan

Seven courses to build the knowledge of Data Governance Program ( planning & establishment ) by Kelle O'Neal with 100 MCQs Exam1. Getting Started Governing Data - The Data Governance Framework
2. Creating a Data Governance Operating Model
3. Data Governance Roles & Responsibilities
4. Data Stewards
5. Data Governance Policy
6. Data Governance Best Practices
7. Data Governance and Its Relationship to Other Data Management Activities

What You Need To Build an Open Sourced Data Science Platform.

Source::#brighttalk.com

The most common questions you may have after you see the architecture ,
I think get them answered before see the architecture would help give you a better perception ..

1. Do I need it full implementation from day one?No, use what you need and incrementally fit as you Go

2. What if already have another tools /products in place?Keep it, Architecture is about incremental evoluation 

brighttalk.com

Get your Data Ready Without a Single line of Code #Alteryx

have a lot of data handy and don't know from where to start , I recommend using #Alteryx , very easy and almost offer 99 % of data manipulation function in drag and drop fashion.

some minor limitation with number of cells , but you will get data ready within a few hours ..
Enjoy :)





Business Intelligence VS Data Science

just ask any practitioner within the field and you will notice at first, the answers appeared to be a random mix, but once they were collated and reviewed, there was a general consensus.

Some of the more in-depth answers included

“Data Science is the core for BI; it is the one in charge of developing the algorithms and strategies to data patterns and trends in data. Business Intelligence uses what Data Science produces in order to give enterprise value to its information.”

“BI is more of a decision support system which helps business drive focus while Data Science is more statistics-driven, and we need folks to pay more attention to granularities within the data. BI is more about ETL and dashboards presentation while Data Science is more focused on finding anomalies within data and establishing the pattern.”

Data Science generates insights and finds anomalies in data, scans, and predicts the future. BI helps to see where your business is at a point in time, generates reports, and dashboards. It is limited to past and present.”

“To me Data Science sounds like the study of making use of data to enable and optimize the realization of information knowledge from it. Business Intelligence makes me think of moving transactional data to a Data Warehouse and writing reports from there. But maybe that isn’t all that different.”

Type of question BI systems can answer .

• How many customers have visited our website every day for the past five years?
• What is product X’s revenue trend over the holidays?
• How often do we need to replace a particular part on our assembly line?
• What has been our most successful sales campaign based on certain metrics?
• What is the historical water usage during summer months of our customers in a given locale?
• Who are our most valuable customers?
• How many page views did we get from a given article last month?
• What is our total inventory stock of agiven item?

Type of questions Data Science allow you to answer 

• How many customers will visit our website next month and buy something rather than just click through?
• Based on their past behaviors, which customers are most likely to be interested in our new product Y?
• What correlations exist among season, geographical region, certain product lines, and a given social media campaign when looking at why a customer will purchase a product versus just browse our product listings?
• What variables will make our next marketing campaign the most successful?
• What variables make one patient more likely to have a given medical condition over other patients?Which medical treatments and preventative measures are most successful in helping such conditions?
• How can we use geo-location data with real-time weather patterns to figure out how best to route incoming and outgoing planes?
• What can the combination of historical flooding data and remote maintenance sensors data tell
• us about creating preemptive flood overflow plans for our most problematic city neighborhoods?

Over the next 5 years do you plan to invest in Predictive Analytics (BigData/Data Science)?”

Setup and Configuer R Services in SQL 2016

SQL Server R Services is designed to help you complete data science tasks.  scale analysis to billions of records without additional hardware, boost performance, and avoid unnecessary data movements.

Now you can put your R code into production without having to re-write it in another language. It also makes it easy to use R for statistical computations that might be difficult to implement using SQL. At the same time, you can leverage the power of SQL Server to achieve maximum performance, using features such as the in-memory database engine and column store indexes.

Here you will find detailed steps how you can install and configure R services and run your first code .

1. launch the Setup of SQL Server
2. Go to Installation clickable link in the left pane
3. Click at the first link the right pane as below screen shoot shows

 4. on the feature selection page select these options

•  Database Engine Services
•  R Services (In-Database

5. On the page, Consent to Install Microsoft R Open, click Accept.
6. if you are using a server doesn't connect to internet you will be asked to provide the location of R   packages you can download from here ( https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=761266&lcid=1033  https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=735051&lcid=1033 )
7. point to the location of the files downloaded in step 6 and then press next
8. installation progress started
9. you should now successfully installed R service


10. connect to the instance where the R service installed
11. Run the following T-SQL Code to enable
Exec sp_configure  'external scripts enabled', 1 
Reconfigure  with  override
12. Restart the SQL Server Service (DB Engine)
13. the instance is ready to run the first R code
exec sp_execute_external_script  @language =N'R',   
@script=N'OutputDataSet<-inputdataset br="" nbsp="">@input_data_1 =N'select 1 as hello'   
with result sets (([hello] int not null));   
go  

Enjoy :) this is the output of you first R' code






 

“Power Query” Get results in few clicks (with example-Mobile Banking Statistics)

only 2 clicks...

1. Load the query from the online search
2. visualize your data as you like .

Enjoy :)

 

Traditional RDBMS VS NoSQL VS MapReduce (Technology attributes)

Attribute	Traditional RDBMS	NoSQL	MapReduce
Data Size	Gigabytes	Gigabytes	Petabytes
Access	Interactive & Batch	Interactive & Batch	Batch
Updates	Read\Write oftentimes	Read\Write oftentimes	Write once read many
Structure	Static Schema	Object types	Dynamic schema
Integrity	High	High	Low
Scaling	Nonlinear	Nonlinear	Linear

SQL Server 2008 SP4 and 2008 R2 SP3 have been relased

SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 4
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=44278

Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 Service Pack 3
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=44271

Missed to regularly purge MSDB!! , what you have to consider prior to start ?

In the last couple of days I had to deal with these number for a MSDB db hasn't purged since 3 years !!!! yeah 3 years , so I had to do many tasks out of the normal tasks ,

let me give you brief about the figures

1. backupFile --- 10 Million rows
2. backupFilegroup --- 6 Million rows
3. backupmediafamily--- 4 Million rows
4. backupmediaset--- 4 Million rows
5. backupset--- 4 million

the total size of the MSDB is 11 GB ,

the fact is , if you start purging the historical backup data you will not be able to perform any type of backup operations for hours if it hasn't take days , in addition to growth of the log file of MSDB dbs , so I had a practical experience I would like to share to do so in a very smooth way as following :

1. extract the whole data in the list of tables above to another SQL instance plus these tables

• restorefile
• restorefilegroup
• restore history

2.apply missing indexes

 Create index IX_backupmediaset_media_set_id on backupmediaset(media_set_id)
go

 

Create index IX_backupmediafamily_media_set_id on backupmediafamily(media_set_id)
go

 

CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [IX_pro_Del]

ON [dbo].[backupset] ([database_name])

INCLUDE ([backup_set_id])

GO

 

CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX []

ON [dbo].[backupset] ([database_name])

INCLUDE ([media_set_id])

GO

 

last step start delete per database
EXEC sp_delete_database_backuphistory 'you database Name'
GO
once you reach a reasonable number of transactions in above listed tables you can get back to normal operation and delete by date

what you have done on the test instance can be applied to your production without any interruption to your operation (backup and  size of log file)

let me know if anything goes wrong ... Enjoy :)
 

SQL Server perfromance Counters

What's new for PerformancePoint Services (SharePoint Server 2010)

Converting a Stored Procedure 2 View

SQL Server 2008 R2 Pricing and Feature Changes

Standard Edition: Now with Backup Compression
SQL Server 2008 introduced backup compression, but it was only available in Enterprise Edition. At the time, Enterprise Edition cost around $20,000 more per processor than Standard Edition, so companies couldn’t justify upgrading to Enterprise Edition just to get backup compression. Companies had to need Enterprise for multiple features in order to stomach the price. If all a DBA needed was compression, they could buy backup compression software much cheaper than the price of Enterprise Edition.
In SQL 2008 R2, even Standard Edition gets backup compression. That’s a game-changer, and I’d expect to see smaller companies that do backup compression – and nothing else – to start falling by the wayside.
In addition, Standard can now be a managed instance – it can be managed by some of the slick multi-server-management tools coming down the pike like the Utility Control Point (read my SQL 2008 R2 Utility review). It can’t be the management server itself – it can’t be a Utility Control Point – but at least we can manage Standard. It’s good to see that Microsoft recognizes all servers need to be managed, not just the expensive ones. Big thumbs up there.
Enterprise Edition: CPU Limits
In Enterprise, Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away. SQL 2008 R2’s BI tools include a new Master Data Services tool. It’s targeted at enterprises with data warehouses that need to manage incoming data from lots of different sources, and that data isn’t always clean or correct. MDS helps make sure data follows business rules. This isn’t a common need for OLTP systems, so it’s only included in Enterprise, not Standard. Makes sense.
A little less easy to stomach, however, is a new set of caps on Enterprise Edition. The current SQL 2008 comparison page shows that Enterprise has no licensing limit on memory or the number of CPU sockets. SQL 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition is capped at 8 CPU sockets, and there’s a memory cap as well, but I haven’t been able to track down a public page showing the cap. The only hint is the SQL 2008 R2 edition comparison page, which notes that Datacenter Edition (more on that in a second) is licensed for “memory limits up to OS maximum.” If that wasn’t a unique selling point, it shouldn’t be included in the feature list.
The more expensive Enterprise can act as the management server (Utility Control Point) for up to 25 instances. However, that doesn’t mean you need to buy one Enterprise per 24-25 Standard servers, and then manage them in pools – there’s an app edition for that.
Datacenter Edition: For, Well, Datacenters
The new Datacenter Edition picks up where Enterprise now runs out of gas. It supports more than 8 sockets, up to 256 cores, and all the memory you can afford. Or can’t afford, for that matter.
If you’re going to manage over 25 instances with the Utility Control Point stuff, Datacenter Edition can manage “more than 25 instances” according to Microsoft’s edition comparison page. I like how they worded that – they didn’t say “unlimited instances,” because there will be performance impacts associated with using Utility Control Points. The performance data collections gather a lot of data, and storing it for hundreds of instances will take some pretty high performance hardware.

Parallel Data Warehouse Edition: Sold with Hardware Only
The big new fella in town getting all the press is the artist formerly known as Project Madison, formerly known as DATAllegro. It’s a scale-out data warehouse appliance, but you won’t find this appliance at Home Depot. This version of SQL Server is sold in reference architecture hardware packages from Bull, Dell, HP, EMC, and IBM. Write one check, and you get a complete soup-to-nuts data warehouse storage engine that includes everything from the servers, SAN, configuration, and training.
I had the chance to talk with Microsoft’s Val Fontama, and I’ll post more details of that interview next week, but I have to share one quick snippet. I asked what happens when a Parallel Data Warehouse system starts to have performance issues, and he explained that the DBA will need to call in specialized Parallel engineers. You won’t be popping open this rack and installing another drawer of hard drives yourself or adding additional commodity hardware boxes to scale out your datacenter. It’s more of a sealed solution than something you have to build yourself.
I have mixed feelings about this – as a guy who loves hardware, I want to dive under the hood. However, as a guy who’s managed data warehouses, I know it’s one heck of an ugly skillset to learn on the job, and when data gets into the 5-10 terabyte range, you can’t afford to make configuration mistakes.

How Much Would You Pay For All This?
It slices. It dices. And if you call now, you can get all this for the low, low sticker price of:
• Standard Edition – $7,499 per processor (socket)
• Enterprise Edition – $28,749 per processor
• Datacenter Edition – $57,498 per processor
• Parallel Data Warehouse Edition – $57,498 per processor (but you’ll be buying this in combination with hardware anyway)
Eagle-eyed readers will note it’s about a 20% price increase from SQL Server 2008. That’s probably easy to justify on Standard Edition because Microsoft can say they’re throwing in backup compression, a feature that normally would have cost extra from third party vendors.
SQL 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition, however, won’t have quite as easy of a time justifying its price increase given that it now has CPU caps and already had backup compression anyway

MS SQL Server System Databases

The Resource Database
SQL Server added the Resource database. This database contains all the read-only critical system tables, metadata, and stored procedures that SQL Server needs to run. It does not contain any information about your instance or your databases, because it is only written to during an installation of a new service pack.
The Resource database contains all the physical tables and stored procedures referenced
logically by other databases. The database can be found by default in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL
Server\MSSQL10.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\Binn.mdf and .ldf, and there is only one Resource database perinstance.
The use of drive C: in the path assumes a standard setup. If your machine is set up differently, you may
need to change the path to match your setup. Additionally, the .MSSQLSERVER is the instance name.
If your instance name is different, use your instance name in the path.
In SQL Server 2000, when you upgraded to a new service pack, you would need to run many long scripts to drop and recreate system objects. This process took a long time to run and created an environment hat couldn’t be rolled back to the previous release after the service pack. In SQL Server 2008, when you pgrade to a new service pack or quick fix, a copy of the Resource database overwrites the old database.
This enables you to both quickly upgrade your SQL Server catalog and roll back a release.
The Resource database cannot be seen through Management Studio and should never be altered unless you’re under instruction to do so by Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS). You can connect to the database under certain single-user mode conditions by typing the command USE MSSQLSystemResource.
Typically, a DBA runs simple queries against it while connected to any database, instead of having to connect to the resource database directly. Microsoft provides some functions which allow this access. For example, if you were to run this query while connected to any database, it would return your Resource database’s version and the last time it was upgraded:
SELECT serverproperty(‘resourceversion’) ResourceDBVersion,
serverproperty(‘resourcelastupdatedatetime’) LastUpdateDate Do not place the Resource database on an encrypted or compressed drive. Doing this may cause upgrade or performance issues.


The master Database
The master database contains the metadata about your databases (database configuration and file location),logins, and configuration information about the instance. You can see some of the metadata stored in master by running the following query, which returns information about the databases that exist onthe server:SELECT * FROM sys.databasesThe main difference between the Resource and master databases is that the master database holds dataspecific to your instance, whereas the Resource database just holds the schema and stored proceduresneeded to run your instance, but does not contain any data specific to your instance. You should alwaysback up the master database after creating a new database, adding a login, or changing the configurationof the server.


tempdb Database
The tempdb database is similar to the operating system paging file. It’s used to hold temporary objects created by users, temporary objects needed by the database engine, and row-version information. The tempdb database is created each time you restart SQL Server. The database will be recreated to be its original database size when the SQL Server is stopped. Because the database is recreated each time, there is no reason to back it up. Data changes made to objects in the tempdb database benefit from reduced logging.
It is important to have enough space allocated to your tempdb database, because many operations that you will use in your database applications use the tempdb. Generally speaking, you should set tempdb to autogrow as it needs space. If there is not enough space, the user may receive one of the following errors:
❑ 1101 or 1105: The session connecting to SQL Server must allocate space in tempdb.
❑ 3959: The version store is full.
❑ 3967: The version store must shrink because tempdb is full.


model Database
model is a system database that serves as a template when SQL Server creates a new database. As each database is created, SQL Server copies the model database as the new database. The only time this does not apply is when you restore or attach a database from a different server.
If a table, stored procedure, or database option should be included in each new database that you create on a server, you may simplify the process by creating the object in model. When the new database is created, model is copied as the new database, including the special objects or database settings you have added to the model database. If you add your own objects to model, model should be included in your backups, or you should maintain a script which includes the changes.

msdb Database
msdb is a system database that contains information used by SQL Server agent, log shipping, SSIS, and the backup and restore system for the relational database engine. The database stores all the information about jobs, operators, alerts, and job history. Because it contains this important system-level data, you should back up this database regularly

Shrinking Truncate Log File - Log Full

Sometime, it looks impossible to shrink the Truncated Log file. Following code always shrinks the Truncated Log File to minimum size possible.

USE DatabaseName
GO
DBCC SHRINKFILE(TransactionLogName, 1)
BACKUP LOG 'DatabaseName' WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY
DBCC SHRINKFILE(TransactionLogName, 1)
GO

Rebuild System Databases in SQL Server 2008

The syntax for using setup.exe to rebuild the system databases is as follows:

setup.exe
/QUIET
/ACTION=REBUILDDATABASE
/INSTANCENAME=instance_name
/SQLSYSADMINACCOUNTS= accounts
[/SAPWD=password]
[/SQLCOLLATION=collation_name]

Here are the details about how to use this syntax and how it works:

1. Find setup.exe either from your original media or the "local" setup.exe as found in the directory where you have installed SQL Server in the 100\Setup BootStrap\Release directory. So on my machine, I changed directory to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Setup Bootstrap\Release.
2. Run setup.exe with the following syntax from a Windows command prompt:
If you have SQL configured for Windows Authentication Mode use this syntax:
setup /ACTION=REBUILDDATABASE /QUIET /INSTANCENAME= /SQLSYSADMINACCOUNTS=
where is either the name of your named instance or MSSQLSERVER for the default instance
are Windows groups or individual accounts to provision as sysadmin If you have SQL configured for Mixed Authentication Mode use the same syntax except you must also provide the /SAPWD parameter to specify the SA password. If you don't, you will get an error.
If you want to rebuild the system databases with a different collation than what you used to install SQL Server, you would need to supply the /SQLCOLLATION parameter. If you don't supply this parameter, then SQL Server will rebuild the system databases with the collation you selected when you installed SQL Server.
3. When setup has completed rebuilding the system databases, it will return to the command prompt with no messages (It always first prints out the version). If you have any syntax problems or issues with parameters you will see these errors in the command window. If you don't see any errors, then you will need to examine the "Summary" log file to verify it was completely successful.
4. If you immediately go to the directory where logs are stored for setup (100\setup bootstrap\logs), you can open up a file called Summary.txt. This file represents the most recent summary of any execution of setup. If you run setup for any other reason after rebuilding the databases before you look at the summary.txt file you will have to look for a folder inside the logs directory that matches the datetime when you run setup to rebuild the system databases. This may not be something that is simple to do if you have run setup several times so a tip here is to use findstr.exe from the command prompt like the following:
findstr /s RebuildDatabase summary*.*
This search will point you to any summary files that are for rebuilding system databases because this is the string printed in the Summary setup log file when using setup for this purpose. Here is an example "top portion" of a Summary setup log file when rebuilding system databases was successful:

Overall summary:
Final result:
Passed
Exit code (Decimal): 0
Exit message: Passed
Start time: 2008-08-29 08:09:10
End time: 2008-08-29 08:10:25
Requested action: RebuildDatabase

Here are a few interesting notes to consider about how this feature works:
You don't need your DVD anymore!
A new feature different from previous versions of SQL Server is that the system databases files we use to rebuild the current system databases do not come from the original installation media. So where do they come from? The come from the installation folder on your local computer in BINN\templates. On my machine where I installed SQL Server 2008 RTM on a clean machine with the default instance, this full path was at:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\Binn\Templates
In this directory you will find master, model, and msdb database and log files that were copied from your installation source as part of setup.
So the logic in rebuilding the system databases is to get these files and copy them into your DATA directory to obtain your new system databases. This is a very nice enhancements for rebuilding system databases because you are not required to have your DVD or original install media.
However, If these files are missing, then setup will fail and your summary log may look something like this:
Overall summary: Final result: Failed: see details below Exit code (Decimal): -2068643839 Exit facility code: 1203 Exit error code: 1 Exit message: Failed: see details below Start time: 2008-08-29 08:30:42 End time: 2008-08-29 08:31:32 Requested action: RebuildDatabase
Later down in the summary log file you will see the details like the following example:
Detailed results: Feature: Database Engine Services Status: Failed: see logs for details MSI status: Passed Configuration status: Failed: see details below Configuration error code: 0x8C77B9A8@1306@25 Configuration error description: The file C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\Binn\Templates\master.mdf is missing. Configuration log: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Setup Bootstrap\Log\20080829_083014\Detail.txt
The details show the problem. master.mdf is missing from the templates directory. The way to resolve this is to either
1) Use the Repair feature of Setup (Available from the Maintenance option of the SQL Server Installation Center installed your machine)
2) Manually copy the necessary file(s) yourself. On your media source find the directory of your platform (x86, x64, or ia64). Then go to the following directory:
setup\sql_engine_core_inst_msi\PFiles\SqlServr\MSSQL.X\MSSQL\Binn\Template
Once you have copied the file into the templates directory, re-run setup with the syntax I've described above.
What about the Resource Database?
This feature does not attempt to restore the resource database files mssqlsystemresource.mdf or mssqlsystemresource.ldf. In fact, these files are considered part of the software so are now installed in the BINN directory. Therefore, to rebuild these database files you would need to run Repair from the Installation Center.

Backup Database script

Below script describe how to backup database and output file include current date


DECLARE @filename NVARCHAR ( 500 )
SET @filename = 'C:\ABC_' + CONVERT(NVARCHAR, GETDATE(),112) + '.BAK'
BACKUP DATABASE ABC TO DISK = @filename

Happy code ;)

What's New in PerformancePoint SP2?

Planning
Support for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V™
You can now use PerformancePoint Server 2007 SP2 with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
Hyper-V creates new opportunities for server virtualization. You can use Hyper-V to make more efficient use of system hardware and host operating system resources to reduce the overhead that is associated with virtualization.
For more information, see the PerformancePoint Server 2007 Hyper-V guide.


Monitoring

1. You can now use SQL Server 2008 with PerformancePoint Server 2007 SP2.
   Important: To use SQL Server 2008 with PerformancePoint Server, you must install PerformancePoint Server 2007 SP2 before you install SQL Server 2008.
   You can now use the Show Details action on PerformancePoint reports that use data that is stored in SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services.
2. Show Details enables dashboard consumers to right-click in a cell or on a chart value and see the transaction-level details for that value.
   PerformancePoint Server 2007 with SP2 now supports Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
   Hyper-V creates new opportunities for server virtualization. You can use Hyper-V to make more efficient use of system hardware and host operating system resources to reduce the overhead associated with virtualization.
   For more information, see the PerformancePoint Server 2007 Hyper-V guide (http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9639690).
3. You can now use Dashboard Designer on a computer that us running .NET Framework 3.5 alongside .NET Framework 2.0.
   You must install .NET Framework 2.0 before you install .NET Framework 3.5.
   You can now use PerformancePoint Server with domains that have apostrophes in their names
   In previous versions of PerformancePoint Server, when a domain name included an apostrophe, the configuration tool failed for both Planning Server and Monitoring Server.
4. Scorecard key performance indicator (KPI) queries are improved.
5. Timeout errors no longer occur with scorecard key performance indicators (KPIs) that use data that is stored in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services.
6. Time Intelligence Post Formula filters now display the correct number of days for each month.
   In previous versions of PerformancePoint Server, the calendar control for Time Intelligence Post Formula filters sometimes displayed 31 days for each month. This is no longer the case.
7. Time Intelligence filters now work on scorecard KPIs that use data that is stored in Analysis Services
   In previous versions of PerformancePoint Server, some Time Intelligence expressions caused filters that were linked to KPIs to fail.
   For example, when a compound expression such as (Day-7:Day-1) was used in a Time Intelligence Post Formula filter and that filter was linked to a KPI, an error message occurred. In PerformancePoint Server 2007 PS2, single and compound Time Intelligence expressions work with KPIs that use data that is stored in Analysis Services.
   

Download SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 - CTP

The CTP version of SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 (SP3) is now available. You can use these packages to upgrade any of the following SQL Server 2005 editions:

• Enterprise
• Enterprise Evaluation
• Developer
• Standard
• Workgroup

For a summary list of What’s new in SQL Server 2005 SP3 CTP, review the What’s New document.

These packages have been made available for general testing purposes only. Do not deploy the CTP software in production.

Download SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3

SQL Server 2008 SSMS Enhancements - Part I

I have just installed SQL Server 2008 RC0 and had been playing a bit with the new Management Studio. I found a few interesting features. I will try to cover some of those features in this post.

The new cool splash screen SQL Server 2008 has got an all new logo and splash screen.

Activity Monitor
The next feature that attracted me is the new "Activity Monitor".

It opens a window that displays the server activities.

What I found most useful is the section that shows "Recent Expensive Queries". One of the tasks that I do quite often is the optimization of "bad" queries or even "well written" queries that does not perform well enough. This panel of the activity monitor seems to be a good tool which readily shows me the stuff that I need to work on.
Missing Index hints in Graphical Execution Plan
Another change that I noticed instantly is the addition of Missing Index Hints in the query execution plan.

You could right click on the index hint and it will show a context menu that will take you to the details of the missing index.