Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft. As a database server, it is a software product whose primary function is to store and retrieve data as requested by other software applications, be it those on the same computer or those running on another computer across a network (including the Internet). There are at least a dozen different editions of Microsoft SQL Server aimed at different audiences and for workloads ranging from small single-machine applications to large Internet-facing applications with many concurrent users. Its primary query languages are T-SQL and ANSI SQL.
Prior to version 7.0 the code base for MS SQL Server was sold by Sybase SQL Server to Microsoft, and was Microsoft's entry to the enterprise-level database market, competing against Oracle, IBM, and, later, Sybase. Microsoft, Sybase and Ashton-Tate originally worked together to create and market the first version named SQL Server 1.0 for OS/2 (about 1989) which was essentially the same as Sybase SQL Server 3.0 on Unix, VMS, etc. Microsoft SQL Server 4.2 was shipped around 1992 (available bundled with IBM OS/2 version 1.3). Later Microsoft SQL Server 4.21 for Windows NT was released at the same time as Windows NT 3.1. Microsoft SQL Server v6.0 was the first version designed for NT, and did not include any direction from Sybase.
SQL Server 2005
SQL Server 2005 (formerly codenamed "Yukon") released in October 2005. It included native support for managing XML data, in addition to relational data. SQL Server 2005 also allows a database server to be exposed over web services using Tabular Data Stream (TDS) packets encapsulated within SOAP (protocol) requests. When the data is accessed over web services, results are returned as XML.Common Language Runtime (CLR) integration was introduced with this version, enabling one to write SQL code as Managed Code by the CLR SQL Server 2005 introduced Multi-Version Concurrency Control. User facing features include new transaction isolation level called SNAPSHOT and a variation of the READ COMMITTED isolation level based on statement-level data snapshots. SQL Server 2005 introduced "MARS" (Multiple Active Results Sets), a method of allowing usage of database connections for multiple purposes. SQL Server 2005 introduced DMVs (Dynamic Management Views), which are specialized views and functions that return server state information that can be used to monitor the health of a server instance, diagnose problems, and tune performance. Service Pack 1 (SP1) of SQL Server 2005 introduced Database Mirroring, a high availability option that provides redundancy and failover capabilities at the database level. Failover can be performed manually or can be configured for automatic failover. Automatic failover requires a witness partner and an operating mode of synchronous (also known as high-safety or full safety).
SQL Server 2008
SQL Server 2008 (formerly codenamed "Katmai")[12][13] was released on August 6, 2008[14] and aims to make data management self-tuning, self organizing, and self maintaining with the development of SQL Server Always On technologies, to provide near-zero downtime. SQL Server 2008 also includes support for structured and semi-structured data, including digital media formats for pictures, audio, video and other multimedia data. In current versions, such multimedia data can be stored as BLOB. The final SQL Server 2008 service pack (10.00.6000, Service Pack 4) was released on September 30, 2014
SQL Server 2008 R2
SQL Server 2008 R2 (10.50.1600.1, formerly codenamed "Kilimanjaro") was announced at TechEd 2009, and was released to manufacturing on April 21, 2010. SQL Server 2008 R2 adds certain features to SQL Server 2008 including a master data management system branded as Master Data Services, a central management of master data entities and hierarchies. Also Multi Server Management, a centralized console to manage multiple SQL Server 2008 instances and services including relational databases, Reporting Services, Analysis Services & Integration Services.[28] SQL Server 2008 R2 includes a number of new services, including PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint, Master Data Services, StreamInsight, Report Builder 3.0, Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint, a Data-tier function in Visual Studio that enables packaging of tiered databases as part of an application, and a SQL Server Utility named UC (Utility Control Point), part of AMSM (Application and Multi-Server Management) that is used to manage multiple SQL Servers. The first SQL Server 2008 R2 service pack (10.50.2500, Service Pack 1) was released on July 11, 2011. The second SQL Server 2008 R2 service pack (10.50.4000, Service Pack 2) was released on July 26, 2012. The final SQL Server 2008 R2 service pack (10.50.6000, Service Pack 3) was released on September 26, 2014
SQL Server 2012
At the 2011 Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) summit on October 11, Microsoft announced that the next major version of SQL Server (codenamed "Denali"), would be SQL Server 2012. It was released to manufacturing on March 6, 2012.[34] SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 was released to manufacturing on November 9, 2012, and Service Pack 2 was released to manufacturing on June 10, 2014. It was announced to be the last version to natively support OLE DB and instead to prefer ODBC for native connectivity. SQL Server 2012's new features and enhancements include AlwaysOn SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances and Availability Groups which provides a set of options to improve database availability, Contained Databases which simplify the moving of databases between instances, new and modified Dynamic Management Views and Functions, programmability enhancements including new spatial features, metadata discovery, sequence objects and the THROW statement, performance enhancements such as ColumnStore Indexes as well as improvements to OnLine and partition level operations and security enhancements including provisioning during setup, new permissions, improved role management, and default schema assignment for groups.
SQL Server 2014
SQL Server 2014 was released to manufacturing on March 18, 2014, and released to the general public on April 1, 2014. Until November 2013 there were two CTP revisions, CTP1 and CTP2. SQL Server 2014 provides a new in-memory capability for tables that can fit entirely in memory (also known as Hekaton). Whilst small tables may be entirely resident in memory in all versions of SQL Server, they also may reside on disk, so work is involved in reserving RAM, writing evicted pages to disk, loading new pages from disk, locking the pages in RAM while they are being operated on, and many other tasks. By treating a table as guaranteed to be entirely resident in memory much of the 'plumbing' of disk-based databases can be avoided. For disk-based SQL Server applications, it also provides the SSD Buffer Pool Extension, which can improve performance by cache between DRAM and spinning media. SQL Server 2014 also enhances the AlwaysOn (HADR) solution by increasing the readable secondaries count and sustaining read operations upon secondary-primary disconnections, and it provides new hybrid disaster recovery and backup solutions with Windows Azure, enabling customers to use existing skills with the on-premises version of SQL Server to take advantage of Microsoft's global datacenters. In addition, it takes advantage of new Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 capabilities for database application scalability in a physical or virtual environment. Microsoft provides three versions of SQL Server 2014 for downloading: the one that runs on Microsoft Azure, the SQL Server 2014 CAB, and SQL Server 2014 ISO
Prior to version 7.0 the code base for MS SQL Server was sold by Sybase SQL Server to Microsoft, and was Microsoft's entry to the enterprise-level database market, competing against Oracle, IBM, and, later, Sybase. Microsoft, Sybase and Ashton-Tate originally worked together to create and market the first version named SQL Server 1.0 for OS/2 (about 1989) which was essentially the same as Sybase SQL Server 3.0 on Unix, VMS, etc. Microsoft SQL Server 4.2 was shipped around 1992 (available bundled with IBM OS/2 version 1.3). Later Microsoft SQL Server 4.21 for Windows NT was released at the same time as Windows NT 3.1. Microsoft SQL Server v6.0 was the first version designed for NT, and did not include any direction from Sybase.
| Version | Year | Release Name | Codename | Internal Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 (OS/2) | 1989 | SQL Server 1.0 (16 bit) | Ashton-Tate / Microsoft SQL Server | - |
| 1.1 (OS/2) | 1991 | SQL Server 1.1 (16 bit) | - | - |
| 4.21 (WinNT) | 1993 | SQL Server 4.21 | SQLNT | - |
| 6.0 | 1995 | SQL Server 6.0 | SQL95 | - |
| 6.5 | 1996 | SQL Server 6.5 | Hydra | - |
| 7.0 | 1998 | SQL Server 7.0 | Sphinx | 515 |
| - | 1999 | SQL Server 7.0 OLAP Tools | Palato mania | - |
| 8.0 | 2000 | SQL Server 2000 | Shiloh | 539 |
| 8.0 | 2003 | SQL Server 2000 64-bit Edition | Liberty | 539 |
| 9.0 | 2005 | SQL Server 2005 | Yukon | 611/612 |
| 10.0 | 2008 | SQL Server 2008 | Katmai | 661 |
| 10.25 | 2010 | Azure SQL DB | Cloud Database or CloudDB | - |
| 10.50 | 2010 | SQL Server 2008 R2 | Kilimanjaro (aka KJ) | 665 |
| 11.0 | 2012 | SQL Server 2012 | Denali | 706 |
| 12.0 | 2014 | SQL Server 2014 | SQL14 | 782 |
SQL Server 2005 (formerly codenamed "Yukon") released in October 2005. It included native support for managing XML data, in addition to relational data. SQL Server 2005 also allows a database server to be exposed over web services using Tabular Data Stream (TDS) packets encapsulated within SOAP (protocol) requests. When the data is accessed over web services, results are returned as XML.Common Language Runtime (CLR) integration was introduced with this version, enabling one to write SQL code as Managed Code by the CLR SQL Server 2005 introduced Multi-Version Concurrency Control. User facing features include new transaction isolation level called SNAPSHOT and a variation of the READ COMMITTED isolation level based on statement-level data snapshots. SQL Server 2005 introduced "MARS" (Multiple Active Results Sets), a method of allowing usage of database connections for multiple purposes. SQL Server 2005 introduced DMVs (Dynamic Management Views), which are specialized views and functions that return server state information that can be used to monitor the health of a server instance, diagnose problems, and tune performance. Service Pack 1 (SP1) of SQL Server 2005 introduced Database Mirroring, a high availability option that provides redundancy and failover capabilities at the database level. Failover can be performed manually or can be configured for automatic failover. Automatic failover requires a witness partner and an operating mode of synchronous (also known as high-safety or full safety).
SQL Server 2008
SQL Server 2008 (formerly codenamed "Katmai")[12][13] was released on August 6, 2008[14] and aims to make data management self-tuning, self organizing, and self maintaining with the development of SQL Server Always On technologies, to provide near-zero downtime. SQL Server 2008 also includes support for structured and semi-structured data, including digital media formats for pictures, audio, video and other multimedia data. In current versions, such multimedia data can be stored as BLOB. The final SQL Server 2008 service pack (10.00.6000, Service Pack 4) was released on September 30, 2014
SQL Server 2008 R2
SQL Server 2008 R2 (10.50.1600.1, formerly codenamed "Kilimanjaro") was announced at TechEd 2009, and was released to manufacturing on April 21, 2010. SQL Server 2008 R2 adds certain features to SQL Server 2008 including a master data management system branded as Master Data Services, a central management of master data entities and hierarchies. Also Multi Server Management, a centralized console to manage multiple SQL Server 2008 instances and services including relational databases, Reporting Services, Analysis Services & Integration Services.[28] SQL Server 2008 R2 includes a number of new services, including PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint, Master Data Services, StreamInsight, Report Builder 3.0, Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint, a Data-tier function in Visual Studio that enables packaging of tiered databases as part of an application, and a SQL Server Utility named UC (Utility Control Point), part of AMSM (Application and Multi-Server Management) that is used to manage multiple SQL Servers. The first SQL Server 2008 R2 service pack (10.50.2500, Service Pack 1) was released on July 11, 2011. The second SQL Server 2008 R2 service pack (10.50.4000, Service Pack 2) was released on July 26, 2012. The final SQL Server 2008 R2 service pack (10.50.6000, Service Pack 3) was released on September 26, 2014
SQL Server 2012
At the 2011 Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) summit on October 11, Microsoft announced that the next major version of SQL Server (codenamed "Denali"), would be SQL Server 2012. It was released to manufacturing on March 6, 2012.[34] SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 was released to manufacturing on November 9, 2012, and Service Pack 2 was released to manufacturing on June 10, 2014. It was announced to be the last version to natively support OLE DB and instead to prefer ODBC for native connectivity. SQL Server 2012's new features and enhancements include AlwaysOn SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances and Availability Groups which provides a set of options to improve database availability, Contained Databases which simplify the moving of databases between instances, new and modified Dynamic Management Views and Functions, programmability enhancements including new spatial features, metadata discovery, sequence objects and the THROW statement, performance enhancements such as ColumnStore Indexes as well as improvements to OnLine and partition level operations and security enhancements including provisioning during setup, new permissions, improved role management, and default schema assignment for groups.
SQL Server 2014
SQL Server 2014 was released to manufacturing on March 18, 2014, and released to the general public on April 1, 2014. Until November 2013 there were two CTP revisions, CTP1 and CTP2. SQL Server 2014 provides a new in-memory capability for tables that can fit entirely in memory (also known as Hekaton). Whilst small tables may be entirely resident in memory in all versions of SQL Server, they also may reside on disk, so work is involved in reserving RAM, writing evicted pages to disk, loading new pages from disk, locking the pages in RAM while they are being operated on, and many other tasks. By treating a table as guaranteed to be entirely resident in memory much of the 'plumbing' of disk-based databases can be avoided. For disk-based SQL Server applications, it also provides the SSD Buffer Pool Extension, which can improve performance by cache between DRAM and spinning media. SQL Server 2014 also enhances the AlwaysOn (HADR) solution by increasing the readable secondaries count and sustaining read operations upon secondary-primary disconnections, and it provides new hybrid disaster recovery and backup solutions with Windows Azure, enabling customers to use existing skills with the on-premises version of SQL Server to take advantage of Microsoft's global datacenters. In addition, it takes advantage of new Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 capabilities for database application scalability in a physical or virtual environment. Microsoft provides three versions of SQL Server 2014 for downloading: the one that runs on Microsoft Azure, the SQL Server 2014 CAB, and SQL Server 2014 ISO
