SQL SERVER 2012

INTRODUCTION OF SQL 2012:

A key component of the cloud-ready information platform, SQL Server Code Name ―Denali will help organizations unlock breakthrough insights across the organization as well quickly build solutions and extend data across on-premises and public cloud backed by mission critical confidence.

Mission Critical Confidence – Enable mission critical performance and availability at low TCO.

Breakthrough Insight – Unlock new insights with rapid data exploration and visualization across the organization.

Cloud on Your Terms – Create and scale business solutions fast, on your terms from server to private or public cloud.

Cloud On Your Terms

NEW FEATURES IN SQL 2012 SSMS:

1. THE ABILITY TO RESTORE PAGE FRO GUI:

So far it is possible in scripts.But in SQL 2012, page restoration is possible from GUI.

Using “ADD”, additional pages can be added.

2. TAIL-LOG BACKUP:

In SQL 2012 the database restore GUI is similar to the previous versions but with several differences.

EXAMPLE:

In this example, for the database TestBR, Restore the database to last backup is taken. This database is set to full recovery model with Full DB backup taken every hour, differential backup on every 15 minutes and Tlog backup on every 5 minutes.

In previous versions tail-log backup is taken manually.But here, on the top of that same window you have a notification message which says that a tail-log backup will be taken of the source database.

Timeline is also available so that restoration is possible not to the last backup taken but to a specific point in time in the past.

WHY MIGRATE TO SQL SERVER 2012 ?

The Softchoice Navigator has compiled what we view as the seven wonders of SQL 2012 that make the move worthwhile for any organization.

1. ALWAYS ON-HIGH AVAILABILITY AND DISASTER RECOVERY:

In SQL 2012, Microsoft introduces AlwaysOn to address the need for a highly available SQL Server infrastructure. AlwaysOn is a (high-availability (HA) and disaster-recovery (DR) ready-for-the-enterprise solution that provides a new option for DBAs who previously might have leveraged other options, such as database mirroring or Windows Server Clustering in their SQL environments

SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups is a new feature that greatly enhances the capabilities of Database Mirroring and helps ensure availability of application databases. Availability Groups provides an integrated set of options including automatic and manual failover of a group of databases, support for up to four secondaries, fast application failover and automatic page repair.

SQL Server AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances enhance SQL Server Failover Clustering and support multi-site clustering across subnet which helps enable cross-datacenter failover of SQL Server instances. Fast and predictable instance failover is another key benefit which helps ensure fast application recovery.

SQL Server AlwaysOn Active Secondries enable secondary instances to be utilized for running report queries and backup operations which helps eliminate idle hardware and improve resource utilization.

SQL Server AlwaysOn Connection Director Capabilities:

Multi-subnet failover: This improvement enables faster client connection failover for AlwaysOn in multi-subnet scenarios. Now client applications can failover across multiple subnets (up to 64) almost as fast as they can failover within a single subnet.

Read-Only Intent: This improvement is a big step in our connectivity story for Readable secondaries, which is accepted really well by our customers, both at PASS as well as earlier SDRs. This improvement gives the customers a way to control the type of workloads that run on their HA servers and efficiently manage their resources.

SQL Server AlwaysOn AutoStat auto-creates and updates temporary statistics needed for queries running on the readable secondary. These temporary statistics area stored in TempDB therefore no physical changes are required in the user database. This allows the optimizer to generate optimal query plans on secondary replica as it would do on the primary replica and it does not require any user intervention.

2. BLAZING –FAST PERFORMANCE:

In-Memory Column Store (“Apollo”) ―Apollo‖ introduces column store technology to the database engine, making SQL Server the first of the major general-purpose database systems to have a true column store.

Full-Text Search Performance Overhaul FTS in SQL Server Code Name ―Denali‖ brings magnitudes of performance and scale advances with significantly improved query execution and concurrent index update mechanisms.

Table Partitioning up to 15,000 Support growing data warehousing with table partitioning that now scales to 15,000 partitions. This new expanded support helps enable large sliding-window scenarios which will streamline maintenance of large sets within filegroups that need data switched in and out per the needs of the data warehouse.

Extended Events enhancements Enhancements to Extended Events dramatically streamline functional and performance troubleshooting with new profiling information and a new user interface. Enhancements include flexible event selection, logging, and filtering with Extended Events.

3. BETTER DATA QUALITY SERVICES:

Data input to a SQL database table isn’t always going to be 100% correct, and sometimes it needs to be cleaned up before accurate reports can be produced. But what if there are millions of rows in a table with dozens of fields? A manual effort could take weeks, and probably introduce even more errors.

Data Quality Services (DQS) in SQL 2012 leverages an internal Knowledge Base about what data in specific fields should look like, and once that KB is populated with information about

your data, DQS will be able to ensure high quality data and that your reports will be accurate. What’s best about the DQS feature is that it doesn’t take a highly skilled DBA to configure and use – end users can manage that process themselves.

4. BEEFED UP BI CAPABILITIES:

SQL 2012 includes improved Business Intelligence capabilities, powered by a Project “Crescent”. Crescent is part of SQL Reporting Services, and allows users to visually represent data, enabling an interactive way to gain real business intelligence from the information at hand.

Project ―Crescent‖ is an interactive data exploration and visual presentation experience targeted at Information Workers who need access to their business data but don‘t have the technical knowledge to write their own queries or specialized knowledge around reporting. Built on top of the BI Semantic Model, which provides a user friendly view of the data, Project ―Crescent‖ gives the user a powerful yet simple to use experience for telling stories with their data.

A further benefit of using AlwaysOn is that mirror servers can be used to create and run reports. Using Crescent, those reports, or ad-hoc queries, can be run against target servers that are part of a Database Availability Group, which allows real-time reporting without affecting production systems

The Sematic Model within Denali enables business intelligence solutions to scale to very large organizations and includes one mode of use for all types of end users – users who create simple reports, or who are building customer BI applications.

5. SHINY NEW DEVELOPER TOOLS:

SQL Server Developer Tools Code Name ―Juneau‖ unifies the development experience for database development with a single powerful environment for database development across Database, BI and web and supports SQL Server and SQL Azure.

• New Visual Studio based IDE comes standalone or integrated (source control, unit testing, etc…), is released with SQL Server Code Name ―Denali‖, on the web, and with Visual Studio vNext and is designed for both database and BI developers

• Improved experience for database developers includes declarative, model-based development, integrated tools with modern language services, ability to work connected and offline with local testing, and offers SQL Server edition-aware targeting (SQL Server, SQL Azure…).

• Improved experience for SSIS developers for data flow design, undo/redo, and human readable packages.

Juneau is comprised of a set of tools to enable developers to build, test, debug, control revisions, and modify databases and associated applications for various platforms, such as down-level SQL Server instances, or SQL Azure. Also included are query tools, which may make visits to the SQL Server Management Studio increasingly rare for developers and DBAs.

6. WINDOWS SERVER CORE SUPPORT:

SQL Server is supported on Windows Server Core. By running SQL Server on Windows Server Core the OS patching can be reduced significantly which greatly reduces planned downtime. †The percentage reduction in patching and OS reboots can be as much as 50-60% in certain environments depending on the server roles that are enabled and the type of patches that are applied.

 7. CLOUD CAPABILITIES:

Even better news, SQL Server 2012 is cloud ready. This means:

Flexible options for deploying SQL 2012 using the same version of SQL that you would use in a traditional deployment scenario

Quickly deploying SQL and managing it with the same tools that you would use to manage a traditional implantation

Integration with platforms such as SQL Azure, which will allow organizations to scale services out rapidly without needing to change platforms.

Following is a list of some of the issues that are solved in the SQL Server 2012 RC0 release:

1. We can now create a user with a password at the database level – a “contained database user“. The user authentication is done at the database level and the applications just need to change their connection strings. This solves a very common problem of “Orphaned Users“. In case of a failover, users would be able to connect to the secondary server, without creating logins on the instance hosting the secondary.

2. Collation conflict between the SQL Server instance and the database is one common problem that every DBA and developer has experienced. In SQL Server 2012, tempdb will automatically create the temporary objects by using the collation of the “Contained Database”, instead of the collation of the server. This works very well  if you are working with one database or multiple databases having the same collation. The issue with queries joining temporary tables from multiple databases with different collations is still not resolved.

3. We can get a list of queries and objects that are not contained or cannot be separated from the instance by using DMVs (sys.dm_db_uncontained_entities (Transact-SQL) and events (database_uncontained_usage_event). In other words, SQL Server 2012 provides the information about when the migration crosses the containment boundary.

4. Using the contained databases, a cloud environment can be simulated with clear boundaries between the database and the SQL Server instance.

CONCLUSION:

SQL server code name “Denali” is a significant product release that helps customers continues to build and support mission critical environments. New tools and enhancements enable breakthrough insight across all levels of the organization while cloud-ready technologies for application symmetry across server, private and public cloud helps customers stay agile for the future.