It’s raining Microsoft previews

Microsoft posted a raft of software previews today, including the CTPs or community technology previews  for SQL Server Azure Database bits and SQL Server StreamInsight. The latter will be a component of SQL Server 2008 R2, due in the first half of 2010. The CTP for the overall database posted last week.

StreamInsight, according to Microsoft,  will add a “low-latency complex event processing (CEP) platform to SQL Server, and will enable organizatons to derive insights from streaming data in near real-time in scenarios such as web analytics, algorithmic trading and industrial process control.”

Also newly posted as of today is the release candidate (RC) for Exchange Server 2010. the new Exchange Server is now deemed “feature complete.”