Microsoft has released SQL Server 2005 SP3 Cumulative Update 13, which is Build 4315. It was actually released on Monday, but the “View and request hotfix downloads” link was broken until earlier today.  I waited to blog about it until you could actually request it.

I have downloaded both the x86 and x64 versions of the Cumulative Update, so I know the link is working.

There are only six hotfixes in this cumulative update. If you are on a relatively old build of SQL Server 2005 SP3, I would wait and just go to SQL Server 2005 SP4 after SQL Server 2005 SP4 CU1 comes out in a few weeks. I would definitely be planning to move to the SQL Server 2005 SP4 branch sometime in 2011, because the SQL Server 2005 SP3 branch will be retired late in the year.

As an “activist” DBA, I would actually be pushing pretty hard to upgrade to SQL Server 2008 R2 if I was still running on SQL Server 2005. We moved the last of our Production instances at NewsGator from SQL Server 2008 to SQL Server 2008 R2 over a year ago, with great results.