One of the most important factors to be successful as a developer is being up to date in knowledge and unlearning old outdated stuff and learning new stuff. This is very essential whenever there is a new release of a product that we are working in. Here is an attempt to learn together the new features of SQL 2012.

1. New features of SQL
2012
Sathyan R
sathyanr@mindfiresolutions.com
ALL SAMPLES FROM ADVENTUREWORKS2012 DB

2. Agenda
 - Shortcuts
 - New DMVs
 - Spatial Indexes
 - Columstore Indexes
 - String Functions
 - DateTime Functions
 - Conversion Functions
 - Offset and Fetch
 - Sequence
 - With Result Sets
 - Error Handling Enhancements
 - Filetable
 - Analytical Functions
 - Questions posed by Big Data

3. Shortcuts
 Keyboard Shortcuts
 Query Shortcuts
 Formatting Shortcuts
 Auto Recover (Old)
 Visual Studio Compatible
 Full List

4. New DMVs
 Server state information that can be used to
monitor the health of a server instance,
diagnose problems, and tune performance.
 Multiple Types (DB, Extended Events,
Execution, Mirroring, CLR, Index, I/O, Security,
Etc.)
 New Additions in 2012
 Select *

5. Spatial Indexes
 Faster build time for spatial indexes on point
data – critical for tables with millions of rows
 Optimized STDistance and STBuffer Functions
 Row Compression and Page Compression
 sp_help_spatial_geography_histogram
sp_help_spatial_geometry_histogram
 More Details

6. Columnstore Indexes
 Star Schema - Fact table – Dimension Table
 Row Based Storage
 Columnstore Indexes – Performance
Improvement
 Syntax
 Restrictions – Insert/Update
 Data type restrictions
 Clustered Columnstore Index?

7. String Functions
 CONCAT
◦Auto Handles NULL
 FORMAT
◦Addresses Issues in DateTime Formatting
◦Culture specific same as in .NET
◦FORMAT ( value, format [, culture ] )

8. DATETIME Functions
 EOMONTH
 DATEFROMPARTS
◦Sample, Format Date
 DATETIME2FROMPARTS
 TIMEFROMPARTS
 DATETIMEFROMPARTS
 DATETIMEOFFSETFROMPARTS

9. Conversion Functions
 TRY_PARSE
 PARSE
 TRY_CONVERT

10. Logical Functions
 IIF
 CHOOSE

11. Offset and Fetch
 Are You Paginating Right?

12. SEQUENCE
 Identity
 SEQUENCE - at DB level - used across
multiple tables – Controlled by App
 SEQUENCE can be reset without altering
its previous value – MIN – MAX - CYCLE

13. SEQUENCE USAGE - MSDN
 The application requires a number before the insert into the table is made.
 The application requires sharing a single series of numbers between multiple
tables or multiple columns within a table.
 The application must restart the number series when a specified number is
reached. For example, after assigning values 1 through 10, the application starts
assigning values 1 through 10 again.
 The application requires sequence values to be sorted by another field. The NEXT
VALUE FOR function can apply the OVER clause to the function call. The OVER
clause guarantees that the values returned are generated in the order of the
OVER clause's ORDER BY clause.
 An application requires multiple numbers to be assigned at the same time. For
example, an application needs to reserve five sequential numbers. Requesting
identity values could result in gaps in the series if other processes were
simultaneously issued numbers. Calling sp_sequence_get_range can retrieve
several numbers in the sequence at once.
 You need to change the specification of the sequence, such as the increment
value.

14. WITH RESULT SETS
 change the column names and data types
of the result set returned in the execution
of a SP

15. Error Handling With Throw
 Much Easier, Simpler
 Similar to .NET
 No need of @@RAISE_ERROR Anymore

16. Filetable
 Filetable in SQL 2012
 http://www.ourgoalplan.com/KLMS/TipVie
w.aspx?id=3241

17. Analytical Functions
 FIRST_VALUE
 LAST_VALUE
 LAG
 LEAD

18. Questions Posed by BigData
 Velocity Volume Variability
 Hadoop - DFS
 Facebook Twitter Google
 Two different reasons
 SSD – Solid State Data Storage allows
100,000s IOPS Vs 150 to 200
 Hortonworks and Cloudera