No Surface Area Configuration Tool in SQL Server 2008

So, you thought that you have by now become comfortable with the Surface Area Configuration Tool in SQL Server 2005 and are ready to do the configuration once you install SQL Server 2008.  Well, the tool does not exist anymore in SQL Server 2008 and has been added to the deprecated feature list. As you will recall, we used to use SAC for doing configuration for services & connections as well as for features.

So, how can you go about making configuration changes via the GUI?  It has been divided up into different tools now:

a) Instance and Database Engine Features:

This will now be done through SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio).  Right click on the instance and select Facets as shown in the image below:

Once you select it, the next screen that you will get is this one:

And you can pick and choose what you want to confgure.  Surface Area configuration is one of the facets.  Another thing that you would note in the above image at the bottom right hand side is “Export Current State as Policy” – using this, one can then use that policy across the group in order to have a consistent environment.  We have covered policy based management before in our post here.

And likewise, for the database parameters, you right click on the database in question and select facets and will get a similar screen where you can set the parameters for the database:

b) Connections, Protocols and StartUp options:

These are done via the SQL Server Configuration Manager.  This remains exactly the same as before.  We have covered the configuration manager related work in some of our previous posts.

c) SSAS Features:

This is done via the property settings in SSMS.  Right click and select properties and you will get this screen where you can set the values:

d) SSRS Features:

This is done either by editing the RSReportServer.config file or by using the facets feature again as shown below: