Microsoft New Zealand today announced the general availability of SQL Server 2012, effective immediately.

SQL Server 2012 helps address the challenges of increasing data volumes by rapidly turning data into actionable business insights. This challenge has been highlighted by IT research firm Gartner, who estimate the volume of global data is growing at a rate of 59 percent per year, with 70 to 85 percent in unstructured form.*

Key functionality of SQL Server 2012 includes:

• SQL Server AlwaysOn – a new solution delivering increased application availability, lower total cost of ownership and ease of use

• xVelocity – in-memory technologies significantly boost data warehouse and analytics performance by up to 100 times

• Power View – a web-based, highly interactive data visualisation and presentation solution, designed to enable business users and decision makers to quickly discover meaningful insights from their data

• Data integration and management, new and enhanced tools to deliver credible, consistent data to the right users at the right time, including new SQL Server Data Quality Services and enhanced Master Data Services

• Enhanced PowerPivot functionalities – enable customers to leverage new advanced analytic capabilities and increases ease of use, while still working within the familiar tools provided by Excel

• The new Business Intelligence (BI) Semantic Model provides a single, scalable model for BI applications, from reporting and analysis to dashboards and scorecards

• SQL Server Data Tools, a new tool that unifies SQL Server and cloud SQL Azure development for both professional database and application developers

Steve Haddock, Business Group Lead, Server and Tools Marketing for Microsoft New Zealand, says this is an exciting time for enterprise data systems.

“SQL Server 2012 is a   modern data platform and will assist organisations to unlock mission-critical insights and quickly build reporting solutions to extend data across datacenters, and public and private Cloud platforms. It is a hugely exciting time for everyone involved and we look forward to assisting organisations to gain essential insights into how their businesses are operating.”

Microsoft also announced today that SQL Server 2012 has demonstrated new record-breaking performance benchmarks through partner- and Microsoft-led testing, underscoring SQL Server’s ability to scale across the enterprise.

One company who recognised the benefits of SQL Server 2012 early on is the Bank of New Zealand (BNZ), a participant in Microsoft’s global Rapid Deployment Programme (RDP).

The new SQL Server 2012 solution will reduce analysts’ reliance on the BI team, improve their insights and help BNZ respond more quickly to the market.

Key benefits include:

•  The ability to run data queries 60 times faster

•  Reducing requests for BI specialist work in half

•  Avoiding weeks of delay in receiving reports, resulting in faster response to market conditions

•  The ability to validate new ideas the same day instead of waiting weeks or months

For more information visit: www.microsoft.com/sqlserver