The functions of 2012 are much more enhanced than those of 2008. Some functions have been added and some processing mechanisms have been modified.

AlwaysOn - This function brings database mirroring to a new level. Users can do disaster recovery for a group of databases instead of a single database.

2. Windows Server Core support - Windows Server Core is the command line interface for Windows, using DOS and PowerShell for user interaction. It's less resource intensive, more secure, and supports SQL Server 2012.

3. Columnstore index - This is a feature unique to SQL Server. They are read-only indexes designed for data warehouse queries. Data is organized and stored in a flat, compressed form, greatly reducing I/O and memory usage.

4. Customize server permissions - DBA can create database permissions, but not server permissions. For example, if the DBA wants a development group to have read and write permissions for all databases on a certain server, he must complete this operation manually. However, SQL Server 2012 supports server-specific permission settings.

5. Enhanced auditing capabilities - All SQL Server versions now support auditing. Users can customize audit rules and record some customized times and logs.

6. BI Semantic Model - This feature is used to replace the "Analysis Services Unified Dimentional Model". This is a hybrid data model that supports all BI experiences in SQL Server.

7. Sequence Objects - People who use Oracle have always wanted this feature. A sequence is a self-increasing value based on a trigger. SQL Server has a similar feature, identity columns, but now implemented as objects.

8. Enhanced PowerShell support - All Windows and SQL Server administrators should seriously learn the skills of PowderShell. Microsoft is working hard to develop support for PowerShell in its server-side products.

9. Distributed Replay - This function is similar to Oracle's Real Application Testing function. The difference is that SQL Server Enterprise Edition comes with this feature, but with Oracle, you have to purchase this feature additionally. This feature allows you to record the working conditions of the production environment and then reproduce these working conditions in another environment.

10. PowerView - This is a powerful autonomous BI tool that allows users to create BI reports.

11. SQL Azure enhancements - This is not directly related to SQL Server 2012, but Microsoft did make a key improvement to SQL Azure, such as Reporint Service, backup to Windows Azure. The upper limit of Azure database has been increased to 150G.

12. Big data support - This is the most important point, although it is placed at the end. At last year's PASS (Professional Association for SQL Server) conference, Microsoft announced its cooperation with Cloudera, the provider of Hadoop. One is to provide a Linux version of the SQL Server ODBC driver. The main content of the cooperation is Microsoft's development of Hadoop connectors, which means that SQL Server has also entered the NoSQL field.

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