PASS Summit 2013: Deeper Dive into the Microsoft Announcements

Following the day one keynote at this year’s PASS Summit in Charlotte, Megan Keller, SQL Server Pro Editorial Director, and I sat down with Tiffany Wissner, Director of Product Marketing for Microsoft, to talk in more detail about some of the announcements that Quentin Clark, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft, made in the PASS day one keynote. First, Tiffany pointed out that the SQL Server 2014 CTP2 is available for download immediately. Tiffany also noted that a new SQL Server 2014 CTP2 virtual image is also in Windows Azure Infrastructure Services.

Related: PASS Summit 2013 Keynote Day One

OTLP In-Memory Database Engine

Of course, the biggest new feature in SQL Server 2014 is the new OTLP In-Memory database engine. Tiffany pointed out the new CTP2 provides the tools to help DBAs understand which tables and stored procedures would benefit from using the new In-Memory OLTP feature. Tiffany also pointed out that TPP, a health care provider in the UK, experienced a 7X performance improvement, with no code changes, by using the new In-Memory OLTP feature.

Unlike their competitors, Microsoft’s goal is to implement the new In-Memory OLTP feature with no hardware changes and minimal application changes. There are a few incompatibilities, like no support for BLOBs or XML, but in many cases, no code changes are required. Tiffany also stated that the In-Memory OLTP engine is compatible with SQL Server 2014 AlwaysOn. The In-Memory OLTP database engine will be delivered with the Enterprise edition of SQL Server 2014.

Built-In Windows Azure Backup Integration

Megan and I also talked with Tiffany about Microsoft’s new SQL Server 2014 CTP2 built-in Windows Azure backup integration. It features both encryption and compression. SQL Server 2014’s SQL Server Management Studio includes options to backup databases to Windows Azure. For older versions of SQL Server, Microsoft is offering their SQL Server Backup for Windows Azure tool. SQL Server Backup for Windows Azure can backup SQL Server 2005 and higher. It also supports compression and encryption. This is a standalone product that can be found from Microsoft’s download page. Like you might expect, it does require a Windows Azure Storage account. SQL Server CTP2 also includes an I/O governances feature which allows you to control storage resources using the SQL Server Workload Governor.