SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 provide a strong foundation for building data warehouse applications. This talk describes how to use them most effectively for data warehouses and data marts. We describe best practices for choosing a processor, storage, and memory configuration for your DW, including a brief description of Fast Track reference architectures. We cover how to choose file and file group structures, and how to define index structures to reduce and speed up I/O. We describe data modeling with a focus on star schemas. We cover how to use pre-built aggregates to speed up queries, including use of indexed views and user-defined summary tables. We describe how to load data into your data warehouse efficiently during a typical nightly load cycle. In addition, we briefly review new features for DW in SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2, such as few outer rows parallelism, partitioned table parallelism, MERGE, minimally logged INSERT, and Change Data Capture, with an emphasis on how they can make your life easier for querying, updating, and loading your DW.