SQL Server 2012 Features

So what’s new with SQL Server 2012? Well, there are a lot of enhanced and new features in the SQL Server 2012 editions. But generally speaking, the following features make the 2012 edition a whole lot better than the previous versions.

AlwaysOn Availability Groups
This feature takes database mirroring to a whole new level. With AlwaysOn, users will be able to fail over multiple databases in groups instead of individually. Also, secondary copies will be readable, and can be used for database backups.

Columnstore Indexes
They are special type of read-only index designed to be use with Data Warehouse queries. Basically, data is grouped and stored in a flat, compressed column index, greatly reducing I/O and memory utilization on large queries.

Windows Server Core Support
Core is the GUI-less version of Windows that uses DOS and PowerShell for user interaction. It uses a lot less resources (50% less memory and disk space utilization), requires fewer patches, and is more secure than the full install. Starting with SQL 2012, it is supported for SQL Server.

User-Defined Server Roles
DBAs have always had the ability to create custom database roles, but never server wide. For example, if the DBA wanted to give a development team read/write access to every database on a shared server, traditionally the only ways to do it were either manually, or using undocumented procedures. Neither of which were good solutions. Now, the DBA can create a role, which has read/write access on every DB on the server, or any other custom server wide role.

Enhanced Auditing Features
Audit is now available in all editions of SQL Server. Additionally, users can define custom audit specifications to write custom events into the audit log. New filtering features give greater flexibility in choosing which events to write to the log.

BI Semantic Model
This is replacing the Analysis Services Unified Dimensional Model (or cubes most people referred to them). It's a hybrid model that allows one data model will support all BI experiences in SQL Server.

Enhanced PowerShell Support
Windows and SQL Server admins should definitely start brushing up on their PowerShell scripting skills. Microsoft is driving a lot of development effort into instrumenting all of their server-based products with PowerShell.

Sequence Objects
A sequence is just an object that is a counter, a good example of its use would be to increment values in a table, based a trigger. SQL has always had similar functionality with identity columns, but now this is a discrete object.

Distributed Replay
Distributed replay allows you to capture a workload on a production server, and replay it on another machine. This way changes in underlying schemas, support packs, or hardware changes can be tested under production conditions.

Big Data Support
Microsoft announced a partnership with Hadoop provider Cloudera. One part of this involves MS releasing a ODBC driver for SQL Server that will run on a Linux platform. Additionally, Microsoft is building connectors for Hadoop, which is an extremely popular NoSQL platform. With this announcement, Microsoft has made a clear move into this very rapidly growing space.

SQL 2012 is a big step forward for Microsoft, the company is positioning itself to be a leader in availability and in the growing area of big data. With all the new features it might be a good reason to upgrade. There's something to like for nearly everyone. I’m looking forward to start using it.