Microsoft released to manufacturing the latest version of its SQL Server database, SQL Server 2014, on March 18. SQL Server 2014 will be available to customers as of April 1.
The newest version of SQL Server's biggest new feature is its built-in in-memory online transaction processing (OLTP) capability, which Microsoft has said can improve database performance up to 30 times (not 30 percent -- 30 times) without any code changes to existing applications or hardware. The in-memory OLTP engine is codenamed "Hekaton." The Hekaton capabilities are designed to complement the in-memory data-warehousing and business-intelligence capabilities that are already in SQL Server.
