It may or may not be a well known fact but SQL Server versions fall under a support lifecycle. You can read more about the Lifecycle for yourself but in its simplest terms this means there is 5 years of Mainstream support followed by 5 years of extended support.
It has been announced on the May 29, 2014 that the final Service pack for SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 will be shipped after July 8 2014 (End of Mainstream support for both of these versions). The final Service Packs for these versions will be:
- SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 4
- SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 3
No new functionality will be included in the Service Packs. Both are going to be roll ups of the existing fixes in the the associated Cumulative Updates that have already been released. You can refer to:
- SQL Server 2008 SP3 Cumulative Updates for a full breakdown of what they included.
- SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2 Cumulative Updates for a full breakdown of what they include.
If you are still running either of these versions and do not have a roadmap in place to upgrade to at least SQL Server 2012, now would be a good time to start a project to create a SQL Server roadmap for your environment.
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