We should change our SQL 2005 Server to SQL 2008.
My bet was 2008 R2 SP1 but in this week we had several problems with it (related to CU7 and CU8) and as far I see, R2 has bugs - confirmed by Microsoft.
We have no special requirements, our SQL 2005 database is a simple persistent storage for a .NET application. What is your experience? 2008 or 2008 R2?
I would go with 2008 R2 SP1 again and try to fix the problems.
Every product has bugs, and changes in behaviour, and assumptions that aren't always going to be true about how it works under certain conditions. That's why we test, so it's good that you're doing that.
My general reccomendation is to always look to update to the most recent version of a server platform possible, so that you know the updated system will be well supported for the greatest length of time and will (lets face it) be the platform that gets the most attention from the vendor in terms of timely fixes for those bugs, etc. Currently for Microsoft SQL server, that's actually SQL Server 2012, so is there a reason why you're not looking at that?
I appreciate it has no bearing on your install, but we've been happy with R2 SP1. Just a simple DB though, no replication, Etc.
R2 SP1 is a mature release, and, if it were me, I'd want to iron out any specific problems via MS, knowing the longevity of the install will be that much more.
Definitely not 2008. That would be 2 major versions behind now. If you want a nice, mature release with no surprises that everyone's mostly figured out, you go with 2008 R2, latest service pack. If you want to go with the newest major version, you go SQL 2012.
There are pros and cons to both approaches, though in this case, I recommend SQL 2012, as it's much better with HA and clustering functions - it's not too difficult to set up your database as a mirror (which actually works in 2012, from what I've seen so far) so that you never have to take your database offline or suffer a major performance hit to do maintenance tasks. Very handy.
