SQL Server 2014 is almost here!

by Mar 25, 2014

sql 2014 connectIn case you hadn’t yet heard, last week Microsoft’s Quentin Clark, announced that SQL Server 2014 had reached the RTM milestone on March 18, and it would be generally available for customers starting April 1 (interesting choice of dates.)  SQL Server 2014 introduces a number of new features and enhancements over 2012.

Following the announcement, a number of articles have been written touching on every aspect of the release.  Much of the talk around 2014 seems is, understandably, focused on the two flagship features:

  • SQL Azure AlwaysOnThe new, in-memory OLTP engine (formerly Hekaton) to speed up transactional applications by storing heavily accessed, memory optimized tables live in memory.
  • Hybrid cloud features that make using Windows Azure for backup and recovery of on-prem SQL Server databases easier.  You can now expand your AlwaysOn solution to include SQL Server 2014 in a Window’s Azure VM.

That’s not all there is to SQL Server 2014, some other features/enhancements of note include:

  • New – buffer pool extension support to non-volatile memory;
  • Enhanced – in-memory ColumnStore for data warehousing; AlwaysOn to include VMs in the cloud; security with built in support for encrypting database backups and more capabilities for separation of duties;
  • Scalability improvements with Windows Server 2012 & 2012 R2.

For a look at SQL Server 2014 features by edition, you may want to check this list out.

So, which of these (or other) features of SQL Server 2014 are you looking forward to the most?