SQL Server 2008 is coming, and so is a reorganized SQL Server site

SQL Server 2008 is coming, and you can learn more about it on TechNet, MSDN or the general SQL Server product site.

If you're a regular visitor these web sites, you've noticed over past year that we've been moving content around, upgrading the look and generally working towards trying to upgrade the site experience for you. (Sometimes it's a hit, and sometimes it's...not.) Recently, to get prepared for SQL Server 2008, I've been doing quite a bit of work here with the SQL Server team to identify pages that we don't need any more, or need to be updated, or combined with other pages.

We're good about putting information up, but not always so good about putting it in the all the places we should and then pulling it down when it's out of date. We're going page by page, link by link to make sure there are no dead ends, that we're still linking to useful information and cleaning up the visual look and feel of some of the pages, (like using two columns instead of one so you don't have to scroll as much.) I did a lot of this on the TechNet site in May, when we moved to the site interface we're using on the site today, but the MSDN site needs some serious attention.

Another thing that we've consistently heard is that technical SQL Server information is spread across TechNet and MSDN and that it can be hard to locate all the information you might need to solve a problem or answer a question. We took a huge step forward on this in May when the SQL Server Books Online were made available through the TechNet Library and sharp-eyed readers noted that the monthly theme pages are exactly the same on TechNet and MSDN.

(You can see this by clicking on the TechNet and MSDN links above and opening a new tab or browser window for each and comparing the pages.)

In the very near future, you will see this ability to surface the same page on both sites taken to a whole new level on the SQL Server TechNet and MSDN sites. Couple this with the content scrub we're doing and I hope that the upcoming site changes will make it easier for you to find the information you want without having to bounce back and forth between the sites so much.

Stay tuned...