With SQL Server currently on a 2-year release cycle, each release is more of an evolutionary change from the previous release than a revolutionary change. Therefore, Microsoft SQL Server 2012 is not a quantum leap forward from SQL Server 2008 R2, but it does provide a number of interesting new features and enhancements that further extend the performance, reliability, availability, programmability, and ease of use of SQL Server. This chapter introduces the major new features provided in SQL Server 2012 and covers a number of the enhancements to previously available features.
What would a new SQL Server release be without new T-SQL commands and constructs to further expand the power and capabilities of the T-SQL language? SQL Server 2012 is no exception. The new constructs provided in SQL Server 2012 include the following:
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One of the key new features in SQL Server 2012 is the AlwaysOn availability features. The new AlwaysOn features provide SQL Server administrators more power and flexibility in their efforts toward providing both high availability and disaster recovery. The AlwaysOn features consist of AlwaysOn Availability Groups and AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances.
AlwaysOn Availability Groups support a failover environment for a discrete set of user databases that fail over together. A single SQL Server instance can host multiple availability groups. In the event of a failure, each availability group can be configured to fail over to different SQL Server instances. For example, one availability group can fail over to instance 2, another availability group to instance 3, and so on. You no longer need to have a standby server that is capable of handling the full load of your primary server. An availability group consists of a set of one or more read-write primary databases and from one to four remote secondary copies. The remote secondary databases can be set up as read-only copies that you can run certain backup operations and reporting activity against, taking significant load off the primary server without the maintenance and overhead of creating snapshots of the secondary databases.
Within Master Data Services (MDS), SQL Server 2012 adds Data Quality Services. Data Quality Services complements MDS and is usable by other key data manipulation components within the SQL Server environment. This feature enables you to build a knowledge base of data rules and use those to perform a variety of critical data quality tasks, including correction, enrichment, standardization, and de-duplication of your data. This also includes the ability to do some basic data profiling to better understand the integrity and overall data quality state of your core data.
Rick Pleczko founded BBS Technologies[1] in 2000. The company produced a line of server backup software products later under the name Idera, competing for business with Imceda and later Red Gate Software.[2]
Idera creates tools designed to support, supplement, and augment the capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server, including SQL Diagnostic Manager, SQL Doctor, and SQL Inventory Manager.[31] The company also offers a software as a service server backup product known as SQL Safe Backup, which allows hosting providers and others to offer their clients continuous data protection for their backups. They also offer a number of free tools for SQL Server performance,[32] backup,[33] and diagnostics[34] and for Windows PowerShell.
The update brings a performance boost (Microsoft claims a 20 per cent jump in throughput) as well as bundling the Sync and Async APIs into one SDK. The update also moves Direct Mode to be based on TCP rather than HTTPS, which will ease request multiplexing. The recently released autoscale throughput provisioning, unleashed at Build 2020, is also supported, meaning careful users should be able to save a few pennies.
For those with deep pockets, Microsoft has bumped the maximum vCore limit for Azure SQL Database serverless from 16 vCores to 40. The change will give users a bit more flexibility and headroom, particular in scenarios with unpredictable usage patterns. However, with billing based on compute used per second, we'd recommend admins keep a close eye on costs as those limits rise. 2ff7e9595c
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