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Easily build mission-critical applications and more
Each new SQL Server release offers a myriad of new features that are designed to make SQL Server DBAs', developers', and business intelligence (BI) pros' work easier. SQL Server 2012 (formerly code-named Denali) is no exception. SQL Server Magazine's Executive Editor Megan Keller and Senior Technical Director Michael Otey talked with Doug Leland, general manager of Microsoft's Product Management, Business Platform Marketing Group, about some of these new features. Leland provided a glimpse into how SQL Server 2012's AlwaysOn high-availability solution. Data Quality Services, development tools, columnar indexes, and cloud computing options enable you to build and secure mission-critical applications, better manage the data life cycle, have greater insight into your data, and store data more efficiently.
SQL Server Magazine: Doug, can you tell our readers about some of the key features in SQL Server 2012?
Leland: I'll highlight some of the new areas in CTP3 specifically, because it's an incredibly rich release with a number of new features that weren't available in previous CTPs. The new features fall into three areas. One is enabling our customers to build mission-critical applications. That's certainly a journey that we've been on for a number of years, and SQL Server 2012 is significantly raising the bar. The second area that's really differentiating for us is enabling breakthrough insights This is really about empowering a much broader user base by giving users access to the BI tools they need to turn information into business insights that will impact and fuel the business as it grows. The third area is really all about the cloud specifically, the "cloud on your terms." When we talked with customers, we found that they're keen on taking advantage of the cloud's economic and scalability benefits, but they're certainly not looking at a wholesale overnight move to the cloud. They want to move to the cloud on their own terms so that they're able to control the environment and control the pace.
In the mission-critical area, the real flagship feature that's available in CTP3 is SQL Server AlwaysOn, which is an integrated high-availability and data-protection solution. It really builds on all the work we've done in the past with SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2....