SQL Sever 2012 - New features

In this article I will write some tips and features that I like it with this version of SQL Server 2012.

1. Reports  support Silver light and has alerts functions.
2. Reports can render as word or excel documents.
3. Contained database (Not fully yet) and how its authentication stored on it and you can login at database level (be careful because the chance of duplicated logins can occur).
4. Ability to define default schema for groups.
5. You can use “Throw” T-SQL to throw exception with Try/Catch like C# language but still no finally statement.
6. You can define SEQUENCE Number object
1. Define start and end sequence
2. Recyclable
3.  Incremental count
7.  OFFSET and FETCH for select with paging
8. Still SQL server 2012 available as 64 bit and 32 bit
9. Windows administraotrs does not has assess by default
10. Update the product while installing but to access local updates you only can do this by command or config file.
11. Better environment which is VS 2010 SP 1 so more debugging , intellisense  and snippets
12. You can restore individual Page from backup to fix suspect pages
13. .   New DMVs like
1.  sys.dm_os_windows_info to runturn OS info
2. sys.dm_os_windows_info to check which services is running
3. sys.dm_server_registry to check registry values
14. Power shell now Is prerequisites for SQL Server 2012
15. Execute query with Result set which enable you for example to change the schema of table like renaming columns without accessing the source .
16. New enchantments for  Data Quality Service (DQS) , Data Tier Application (DAC) and Master Data service. 
17. LocalDB installation copies a minimal set of files necessary to start the SQL Server Database Engine.
18. The FileTable feature brings support for the Windows file namespace and compatibility with Windows applications to the file data stored in SQL Server
19. SQL Server Data Tools
1. Do anything from creating database and database objects from Visual studio
2.  You can work with data as disconnected mode (offline mode)
3. You can clone the data
4. Check the data and T-SQL verification before update it to database server
20. New T-SQL functions

a “Format” to format based on .Net format

             Ex :  SELECT FORMAT ( '12/21/2011', 'D', 'en-US' )

b.      Concat to join strings

      Ex: SELECT CONCAT('Ahmad' ,' ' , 'Rayan')

c.       Immediate If  for inline if condition

      Ex: SELECT IIF(1=1 ,'Yes','No')

d.      Select from array using CHOOSE

      Ex: SELECT CHOOSE(2 ,'Fadi','Ahmad','Rayan')

e.      Get end of month date 

      Ex: SELECT EOMONTH(GETDATE())

f.        Format Date functions 

      Ex: SELECT DATEFROMPARTS(2012,6,7)

             SELECT DATETIMEFROMPARTS(..)

h.      New parsing functions SELECT TRY_Convert(int,'123')

i.         SELECT PARSE('123' AS int)