9.4. Data compression

Predicting the future is a risky business, but if there's one thing that's guaranteed in future databases, it's an ever-growing volume of data to store, manage, and back up. Growing regulatory requirements, the plummeting cost of disk storage, and new types of information such as digitized video are converging to create what some call an information storage explosion. Managing this information while making it readily accessible to a wide variety of client applications is a challenge for all involved, particularly the DBA. Fortunately, SQL Server 2008 delivers a number of new features and enhancements to assist DBAs in this regard.