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New Features Added in SQL Server (2008 To 2016)
New Features Added in SQL Server (2008 To 2016)
http://udayarumilli.com/new-features-added-in-sql-server/
• This post helps you in quickly reviewing the “New Features Added in SQL Server” from 2008 to 2016.
• The most common interview question is “What are the new features added in SQL Server XXXX?”
• To simplify the answer we are just giving the single line abbreviations.
• While preparing for an interview just have a quick look and try to remember 4 to 5 features on current working and last
released version.
• Let’s say you are currently working on 2012 then you need to look for 2012 and 2008 R2.
• Also people would expect you to know few new features added in the latest version which is SQL Server 2016.
• Features are categorised for DBA, Developer and Security.
• That doesn’t mean that SQL Developer need not look into DBA section or vice versa.
• This is just to make it more readable, when a feature is more related to Developer we added in Developer section when
a feature is more relevant administration part it will be in DBA section.
• Believe this will be helpful for a quick review for version wise feature support.
SQL DBA:
Activity Monitor: Great tool to showcase resource utilization and performance using GUI.
Policy Based Management: The ability to manage standards on multiple servers
Enhanced Database Mirroring: Automatic data page repair and compressing outgoing log stream
Resource Governor: We can configure it to control SQL Server resource utilization and workload.
External Key Management: Provides a comprehensive solution for encryption and key management.
Hot Add CPU: Adding resources online without downtime.
PowerShell: SQL Server 2008 ships with PowerShell snap-in built on .Net framework 2.0.
Table Compression: Compress data and index pages to save memory and I/O.
Backup Compression: Native backup compression.
Performance data collection: Centralized data repository for storing and reporting performance data
Extended Events: Event collection is easier now compares to running a trace
SQL Developer:
File-stream Data: To store binary large objects out on the file system.
Multi-Server Queries: being able to submit a batch of queries against multiple servers simultaneously.
Object Explorer Details: 36 possible columns of information about a database
Object Search: Searches for all objects within the selected scope: server, database, tables
SSMS Debug: the ability to debug any Transact-SQL within SSMS using breakpoints etc.
Intellisense in SQL Server Management Studio: interactive help support similar to Visual Studio.
Plan Freezing: Now we can lock down query plans
Spatial Data Types: Geometry and Geography
DATE / TIME Data Types: DATE, TIME, DATETIMEOFFSET
CLR Enhancements: User-defined aggregates and User-defined types now enhanced up to 2GB.
Table-Valued Parameters: It allows stored procedures to accept and return lists of parameters.
MERGE command: For incremental load using INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE operations.
HierarchyID Datatype: Provides tree like functionality among the data elements in a table
Grouping Sets: An extension to the GROUP BY
Filtered Indexes and Statistics: We can create non clustered index on a subset of a table
Object Dependencies: New DMV’s provided for reliable information on depending objects
Sparse Columns: Columns that are optimized for the storage of NULL values.
Security:
TDE – Transparent Database Encryption: Encrypt database without code changes
Change Data Capture: Track data changes.
SQL Auditing: the ability to audit at the server, database and table levels.
SQL DBA:
SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter: Supports 256 logical processors
SQL Server Utility: Central repository control for multiple SQL Servers
Multi Server Dashboards: Dashboards showing combined server data can be created.
SQL Developer:
Master Data Services: To manage enterprise central database
Data-Tier Application: To map Database and Visual Studio builds
StreamInsight: Can analyse streaming data on the fly
Unicode Compression: New algorithm for Unicode storage
PowerPivot for SharePoint and Excel: Process datasets and reports.
Report Builder 3.0: Improved visualizations for SSRS
Parallel Data Warehouse: Data warehouses to be scaled over several physical SQL Servers.
SSMS enhancements for SQL Azure: SSMS support for cloud
SQL DBA:
Licensing Model: It’s not based on sockets introduced new core based licensing model
Edition changes: Introduced new BI edition and retired Datacenter, Workgroup and standard for small business.
AlwaysOn availability: Provides both Disaster Recovery and High Availability
Enhanced PowerShell Support: More CMDLETS introduced
Windows Server Core: Core is the GUI less version of Windows that uses DOS and PowerShell for user interaction SQL Server
2012 supports Windows Core
SQL Azure Enhancements: DB size limit increased to 150 GB, Azure data sync allows hybrid model etc.
SQL Developer:
Indirect checkpoints: Now we can configure checkpoint intervals database wise
ColumnStore-Index: Stores columns on page instead of rows
SSDT: BIDS is now SSDT SQL Server Data Tools.
FileTable: Builds upon FILESTREAM and SQL Server can access windows files on non-transactional
Sequence objects: an alternative for IDENTITY property
THROW: Improved error handling
New Conversion Functions: PARSE, TRY_PARSE, TRY_CONVERT
New Logical functions: CHOOSE, IIF
New String functions: CONCAT, FORMAT
New Date & Time functions: DATEFROMPARTS, DATETIME2FROMPARTS, DATETIMEFROMPARTS, DATETIMEOFFSETFROMPARTS,
SMALLDATETIMEFROMPARTS, TIMEFROMPARTS.
ROWS and RANGE: Support for Window framing on result sets
LAG and LEAD: To get the previous and next rows data
New Rank distribution functions: PERCENT_RANK, PERCENTILE_CONT, PERCENTILE_DISC, CUME_DIST
OFFSET / FETCH: Supports paging for ad hoc queries
FORCESCAN: New table hint
WITH RESULT SETS: More control on stored procedure returned result set metadata
sp_describe_first_result_set: Advanced version for SET FMTONLY option. Also DMV’s added for this
Statistical Semantic Search: Advanced feature builds upon the existing full-text search
Data Quality Services- DQS: A service added to MDS for advanced data profiling and cleansing
Power View: Light weight tool for BI reports
BI Semantic Model: Hybrid model that allows one data model will support all BI experiences
Big Data Support: ODBC driver for SQL Server that will run on a Linux platform etc.
Security:
User-Defined Server Roles: Customization for Server Roles
Database Audit: Like SQL Server Audit and it performs audits database level
Contained Databases: Users can be added on a database without login can easier migration
SQL Developer:
In-Memory OLTP Engine: We can enable memory optimization for selected tables and stored procedures.
Updateable Column-store Indexes: On SQL Server 2012 to utilize the column-store index, the underlying table had to be read-
only. SQL Server 2014 eliminates this restriction. In 2014 Column-Store Index must use all the columns in the table and can’t be
combined with other indexes.
Cardinality Estimator Improvements: Cardinality Estimator redesigned in SQL Server 2014.
Delayed Durability: Introduced delayed durable transactions. A delayed durable transaction returns control to the client before
the transaction log record is written to disk. Durability can be controlled at the database level, COMMIT level, or ATOMIC block
level.
Partition Switching and Indexing: The individual partitions of partitioned tables can now be rebuilt.
Lock priority for Online Operations: The ONLINE = ON option now contains a WAIT_AT_LOW_PRIORITY option which permits
you to specify how long the rebuild process should wait for the necessary locks. We can also be able to configure terminating the
blocking process related to rebuild.
Incremental Statistics: Now we can create partition level statistics by using the option INCREMENTAL
Inline Specification for Indexes: Inline specification of CLUSTERED and NONCLUSTERED indexes is now allowed for disk-based
tables. Creating a table with inline indexes is equivalent to issuing a create table followed by corresponding CREATE INDEX
statements. Included columns and filter conditions are not supported with inline indexes.
SELECT … INTO Enhancement: This statement now can be operated in parallel
Power View and Power BI: Power View now in 2014 supports OLAP cubes along with the tabular data. Power BI for office 365 is
a cloud based BI solution.
Security:
SELECT ALL USER SECURABLES: A new server level permission. When granted, a login such as an auditor can view data in all
databases that the user can connect to.
CONNECT ANY DATABASE: A new server level permission when granted, a login can connect to any existing / future database in
that instance. Combine with SELECT ALL USER SECURABLES or VIEW SERVER STATE to allow an auditing process.
IMPERSONATE ANY LOGIN: A new server level permission when granted, allows a middle-tier process to impersonate the
account of clients connecting to it, as it connects to databases.
http://udayarumilli.com/new-features-added-in-sql-server/