The release of SQL Server 2014 has brought good amount of new features and enhancements. Some of the notable features are presented below.
- Database Engine Enhancement
- In-Memory OLTP for ~10X performance gains by moving most used tables into memory.
- Updatable and clustered column store indexes for faster retrieval.
- Enhanced query processing for better performance without app changes.
- Buffer Pool extension to SSDs for faster paging.
- Resource Governor controls IO along with CPU and memory.
- Enhanced Always On now supports 8 secondary for better HA (High Availability)
- Business Intelligence Enhancement
- Power Query (formally codename “Data Explorer”) in Excel makes easy to access Internal and External data (both Relational and Non-Relational).
- Power Map (formally codename “Geo Flow”) in Excel can be used to get insights with 3D visualization.
- Parallel Data Warehouse with Polybase to support querying Big Data with T-SQL.
- Cloud support Enhancement
- Simplified cloud Backup and Deployment lets you Backup and Restore from SQL Azure/Windows Azure VM to SQL Server and vice-versa.
- HA/Always On in Azure helps to handle disaster recovery.