SQL Server 2014: A Closer Look

Microsoft SQL Server 2014 was announced by Quentin Clark during the Microsoft TechEd 2013 keynote. Designed and developed with our cloud-first principles in mind, SQL Server 2014 builds on the momentum of SQL Server 2012, released just 14 months ago. We are excited to share a closer look at some of the exciting capabilities included in SQL Server 2014 that will help you unlock real-time insights with mission critical and cloud performance.
SQL Server 2014 helps organizations by delivering:

• Mission Critical Performance across all database workloads with In-Memory for online transaction processing (OLTP), data warehousing and business intelligence built-in as well as greater scale and availability
• Platform for Hybrid Cloud enabling organizations to more easily build, deploy and manage database solutions that span on-premises and cloud
• Faster Insights from Any Data with a complete BI solution using familiar tools like Excel

Mission Critical Performance with SQL Server 2014
SQL Server 2014 delivers new in-memory capabilities built into the core database for OLTP and data warehousing, which complement existing in-memory data warehousing and business intelligence capabilities for a comprehensive in-memory database solution. In addition to in-memory, there are new capabilities to improve the performance and scalability for your mission critical applications.
In Memory Built-In

• New In-Memory OLTP – built in to core SQL Server database and uniquely flexible to work with traditional SQL Server tables allowing you to improve performance of your database applications without having to refresh your existing hardware. We are seeing customers such as EdgeNet and bwin achieve significant performance gains to scale and accelerate their business.
• Enhanced In-Memory ColumnStore for Data Warehousing – now updatable with even faster query speeds and with greater data compression for more real-time analytics support.
• New buffer pool extension support to non-volatile memory such as solid state drives (SSDs) – Increase performance by extending SQL Server in-memory buffer pool to SSDs for faster paging.
• New Enhanced Query Processing – speeds all SQL Server queries regardless of workload.

Enhanced Availability, Security and Scalability

• Enhanced AlwaysOn – Built upon the significant capabilities introduced with SQL Server 2012, delivers mission critical availability with up to 8 readable secondaries and no downtime during online indexing operations.
• Greater scalability of compute, networking and storage with Windows Server 2012 R2 –

- Increased scale – Continue to benefit from scale for up to 640 logical processors and 4TB of memory in a physical environment and up to 64 virtual processors and 1TB of memory per VM.
- Network Virtualization – Abstracts networking layer so that it you can easily migrate SQL Server from one datacenter to another.
- Storage Virtualization with Storage Spaces – Create pools of storage and storage tiers allowing your hot data to access the premium storage and cold data to access standard storage improving resilience, performance and predictability.

• Enhanced Resource Governance – With Resource Governor, SQL Server today helps you with scalability and predictable performance, and in SQL Server 2014, new capabilities allow you to manage IO, in addition to compute and memory to provide more predictable performance.
• Enhanced Separation of Duties – Achieve greater compliance with new capabilities for creating role and sub-roles. For example, a database administrator can now manage the data without seeing sensitive data or personally identifiable information.

Platform for Hybrid Cloud
SQL Server 2014 creates a strong platform for hybrid cloud where cloud scale can be leveraged to extend the scalability and availability of on-premises database applications as well as reduce costs.
Simplified Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery

• Backup to Azure Storage – reduce costs and achieve greater data protection by backing up your on-premises database to Azure Storage at an instance level. Optimize backup policy with intelligence built in to SQL Server that monitors and tracks backup usage patterns to provide optimal cloud backup. Backups can be automatic or manual, and in case of an on-premises failure, a backup can be restored to a Windows Azure Virtual Machine.
• AlwaysOn integration with Windows Azure Infrastructure Services – Benefit from Microsoft’s global data centers by deploying a Windows Azure Virtual Machine as an AlwaysOn secondary for cost-effective global data protection. Increase performance and scale reporting for your global business units by running reporting off the readable secondaries in Windows Azure. Run backups on the secondaries in Windows Azure to increase data protection and performance.
• SSMS Wizard for deploying AlwaysOn secondaries in Window Azure – Easily deploy an AlwaysOn secondaries to Windows Azure Virtual Machine with a point and click experience within SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).

Easy Migration of On-Premises SQL Servers to Windows Azure Virtual Machines

• SSMS Migration Wizard for Windows Azure Infrastructure Services – Easily migrate an on-premises SQL Server database to a Windows Azure Virtual machine with a point and click experience in SSMS. The newly deployed database application can be managed through SSMS or System Center 2012 R2.

Faster Insights on Any Data
SQL Server 2014 is at the heart of our modern data platform which delivers a comprehensive BI solution that simplifies access to all data types big and small with additional solutions like HDInsight, Microsoft’s 100% Apache compatible Hadoop distribution and project code name “Data Explorer”, which simplifies access to internal or external data. New data platform capabilities like Polybase included in Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse allows you to integrate queries across relational and non-relational data using your existing SQL Server skills.
With SQL Server 2014, you can accelerate insights with our new in-memory capabilities with faster performance across workloads. You can continue to refine and manage data using Data Quality Services and Analysis Services in SQL Server and finally analyze the data and unlock insights with powerful BI tools built into Excel and SharePoint.