Microsoft will be at the Gartner Business Intelligence and Analytics summit being held in Las Vegas from March 30th – April 2nd as a premier sponsor. We’re looking forward to sharing our vision of how we’re making big data real through the familiar tools you already use – SharePoint, Excel and SQL Server – as Read more
With the In-Memory OLTP feature in SQL Server 2014 we introduce two new types of indexes for memory-optimized tables: the memory-optimized NONCLUSTERED indexes, and the memory-optimized HASH indexes. Memory-optimized NONCLUSTERED indexes behave similar to traditional NONCLUSTERED indexes from an application point-of-view. The main difference being that memory-optimized indexes are always covering (i.e. all columns are Read more
In the previous blog Merge Operations, we described that how a CFP transitions across various stages in its life cycle. In this blog, we will walk through an actual example to show the state transition. Note, some of the states shown for CFPs are only visible in RTM bits (not in CTP2) but internally the Read more
PASS Summit 2013 has been over for a little more than a week and we are already looking forward to what’s next in 2014. PASS Summit is the world’s largest and most-intensive conference for Microsoft SQL Server and BI professionals and it just keeps growing! We are pleased to have had over 5,000 registrations for Read more
SQL Server 2014 CTP2 includes three SQL Server Backup and Restore enhancements. These enhancements enable using Windows Azure for backups, providing options to ease and automate backup management, and improved security for backups through encryption. In addition, to enable backup to Windows Azure from previous versions of SQL Server, a stand-alone tool is now available. A Read more
Microsoft recently announced several new ways to back up and recover SQL Server databases with Windows Azure. These features, now available in SQL Server 2014 CTP2 and as a standalone tool for prior versions, provide an easy path to cloud backup and disaster recovery for on-premises SQL Server databases. The capabilities for backing up to Read more
In the past, deploying a data warehouse has been a costly affair. IT departments required expertise to procure and build state-of-the-art hardware servers (that are optimally balanced from a CPU, storage and I/O perspective) as well as install software that is tuned for optimal performance. Prior to even loading data into the system, you could Read more
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 CTP2 was announced by Quentin Clark during the Microsoft SQL PASS 2013 keynote. This second public CTP is essentially feature complete and enables you to try and test all of the capabilities of the full SQL Server 2014 release. Below you will find an overview of SQL Server 2014 as well Read more
This morning, during my keynote at the Professional Association of SQL Server (PASS) Summit 2013, I discussed how customers are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible for businesses today using the advanced technologies in our data platform. It was my pleasure to announce the second Community Technology Preview (CTP2) of SQL Server 2014 which features Read more
