Microsoft releases SQL Server 2014 CTP2
Microsoft has released SQL Server 2014 CTP2 (download):
What’s new in SQL Server 2014 CTP2?
New Mission Critical Capabilities and Enhancements
- Enhanced In-Memory OLTP, including new tools which will help you identify and migrate the tables and stored procedures will benefit most from In-Memory OLTP, as well as greater T-SQL compatibility and new indexes which enables more customers to take advantage of our solution.
- High Availability for In-Memory OLTP Databases: AlwaysOn Availability Groups are supported for In-Memory OLTP, giving you in-memory performance gains with high availability. IO Resource Governance, enabling customers to more effectively manage IO across multiple databases and/or classes of databases to provide more predictable IO for your most critical workloads. Customers today can already manage CPU and memory.
- Improved resiliency with Windows Server 2012 R2 by taking advantage of Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs). CSV’s provide improved fault detection and recovery in the case of downtime.
- Delayed Durability, providing the option for increased transaction throughput and lower latency for OLTP applications where performance and latency needs outweigh the need for 100% durability.
New Hybrid Cloud Capabilities and Enhancements
By enabling the above in-memory performance capabilities for your SQL Server instances running in Windows Azure Virtual Machines, you will see significant transaction and query performance gains. In addition there are new capabilities listed below that will allow you to unlock new hybrid scenarios for SQL Server.
- Managed Backup to Windows Azure, enabling you to backup on-premises SQL Server databases to Windows Azure storage directly in SSMS. Managed Backup also optimizes backup policy based on usage, an advantage over the manual Backup to Windows Azure. See Backup and Restore Enhancements in SQL Server 2014 CTP2
- Encrypted Backup, offering customer the ability to encrypt both on-premises backup and backups to Windows Azure for enhance security. See Backup and Restore Enhancements in SQL Server 2014 CTP2
- Enhanced disaster recovery to Windows Azure with simplified UI, enabling customers to more easily add Windows Azure Virtual Machines as AlwaysOn secondaries in SQL Server Management Studio for greater cost-effective data protection and disaster recovery solution. Customers may also use the secondaries in Windows Azure for to scale and offload reporting and backups.
- SQL Server Data Files in Windows Azure – New capability to store large databases (>16TB) in Windows Azure and the ability to stream the database as a backend for SQL Server applications running on-premises or in the cloud.
More info:
Microsoft releases SQL Server 2014 CTP2
Geek City: SQL Server 2014 In-Memory OLTP (“Hekaton”) Whitepaper for CTP2
Just a small addition concerning SQL Server Management Studio:
Here is a quick way to compare functionality of previous and new version (SSMS 2012 to SSMS 2014 CTP1 and further versions):
There is a free add-in for SSMS called SSMSBoost (I develop this add-in). Along with many features like query execution history, code navigation and connection management it has command called “Dump SSMS Commands”.
It creates text file with plain list of all commands registered in SSMS.
So, dumping commands list from current and new SSMS version and comparing them in any file comparison utility will quickly show if there is anything new.
(Besides, SSMSBoost outputs information about keyboard shortcuts bound to commands, so you can use “Dump SSMS Commands” to get quick reference of available commands and theirs shortcuts)
(If you do not have time to experiment, then here is the answer: No, there are no new functions in SSMS 2014 CTP1)
To get the answer yourself:
1. Install SQL Server 2014 CTP1 on test machine (probably virtual one). It is enough to install management tools only.
2. Install SSMSBoost on both machines, with SSMS2012 and SSMS2014 CTP1 (Use same installer, SSMSBoost for 2012 works for 2014 as well)
3. Run SSMSBoost->Extras->”Dump SSMS Commands” command on both machines and compare results using any comparer, like WinMerge.
See the difference (no difference at all).
Very cool, thanks Andrei!
In SQL 2014 RTM, SSMSBoost is causing SSMS to crash on start up.
I had SSMSBoost installed on SQL 2012 and although SQL 2014 was a side-by-side installation, for some reason SSMS 2014 is trying to load SSMSBoost.
I haven’t seen a viable work around yet other than removing SSMSBoost from SQL 2012 – which is a shame because I do use it a fair bit 🙁
Full SSMS 2014 support is added in SSMSBoost version 2.13, which is available on our website.
Thanks for waiting 🙂