SQL Server 2008 Spatial data - geography & geometry, all in one
Geography & Geometry has much significance in day to day life, within that as a data now you can manage within your Database using SQL Server 2008 new data type - spatial, this represents information about the physical location and shape of geometric objects. These objects can be point locations or more complex objects such as countries, roads, or lakes. Going further this spatial includes 2 data types - geometry data type and the geography data type, that are implemented as .NET CLR data within SQL Server.
Much said from the documentation as I have no experience in using them, here I want to give you a brief introduction and other useful resources from industry experts (MVPs) and Microsoft development themselves.
They are as follows:
Spatial-Sample within MSDN
Simon Sabin's blog post
Spatial data where to download
SQL Server 2008 Spatial - How many ways to make your point?
More information on OGC specifications, see the following:
Spatial-Introduction blog post talks a brief note as follows:
The first type, “geography”, will store points, lines, polygons, and collections of these in latitude/longitude coordinates using a round-Earth model. Most commonly-available data is given in latitude/longitude coordinates, so we expect that most people will want to use this type. Furthermore, this type will give correct computations on a true ellipsoidal model of the planet. What is the area of Indonesia? Will my flight from Seattle to Beijing take me over North Korea? Where can I store my GPS readings? This is the type for you.
A “geometry” type to support flat-earth data. For those of you who are familiar with such things, this type is our OGC-compliant offering. In some ways, this is a more specialty offering for people who need to work in projected map coordinates either for legacy or legal reasons, but this type can be used for things like interior spaces as well, e.g., “Where in this warehouse is my book?”
Andrew Fryer's blog posts on SPATIAL (with cool demos):
SQL Server 2008 Spatial Data Types
SQL Server 2008 & Virtual Earth
SQL Server 2008 Geo-Spatial functions and indexes