Microsoft SQL Server 2012, formerly known as SQL Server Denali, has been several years in the making. In 2010, Microsoft released the first preview to the IT community and with it announced several new features that may be of interest to you and your business. We highlight a few below:
Power View
Power View, also known as Project Crescent, is a data visualization technology that makes reporting for the average user much easier. Less technically-inclined employees are now able to quickly browse data and create presentation-quality reports, a boon for businesses that use and share business intelligence. For an idea of what Power View has to offer, check out Microsoft’s video on Getting the Most Out of Project Crescent.
AlwaysOn
Most businesses that use SQL Server also need it to be highly-available… In other words, it has to be “AlwaysOn.” AlwaysOn, or High Availability Disaster Recovery, is Microsoft’s latest improvement over the traditional high-availability database strategies, such as mirroring, clustering and log shipping. Microsoft invested a significant amount of engineering effort to combine the best features of clustering and mirroring and introducing an availability group.
If your business expects high-availability in your database server, AlwaysOn in and of itself may be enough reason for you to make the switch from SQL Server 2008.
Column-Store Indexes
A column-store index is designed to provide performance improvements over the traditional index. A regular index stores data on a row-by-row basis, meaning all the data for a particular column is spread across all the rows of the database. A column-store index instead stores the data in a column-by-column basis. If your business has a database with large amounts of data, using a column-store index might enable you to perform real-time queries instead of waiting for a report or a cache to be generated.
Is your small business running Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and considering the switch to SQL Server 2012? Minneapolis-based OAC Technology can help. For over 10 years, we’ve been helping businesses with Server Support, ensuring that their systems are up-to-date and secure. Give us a call at 952-548-5558 and we would be happy to sit down with you for no charge and assess your business’s needs.
