More than a quarter-century after the launch of the original SQL Server, Microsoft unveiled the new features coming with SQL Server 2019, the company’s a follow-up to last year’s SQL Server 2017. SQL Server 2019 preview relational engine is said to deliver new and enhanced features for performance, security and compliance, database availability, and developer productivity. Here’s some more information about the database engine features that are available in the first public Community Technology Preview of SQL Server 2019.
Intelligent Query Processing in SQL Server 2019
The new Intelligent Query Processing suite is meant to rectify some of the common query performance problems by taking some automatic corrective approaches during runtime. It leverages a feedback loop based on statistics collected from past executions. Microsoft has already started leveraging some of these features in Azure SQL Database and plans to continue building on this area for SQL Server 2019.
Persistent memory support
Microsoft is also improving persistent memory support for this release. It’s doing so with a newly optimized I/O path that’s meant to interact with persistent memory storage. When an SQL Server file is placed on a persistent memory device, it allows SQL Server to access the device directly, bypassing the operating system’s storage stack entirely. Basically, this improves performance and low latency I/O without actually changing your database design.
Always On Availability Groups
Always On Availability Groups are also getting an upgrade, including the ability to automatically redirect connections based on read/write intent. This essentially allows applications to redirect without the need for a listener to handle scenarios. This lets users leverage Availability Groups even when creating a listener is not possible or when legacy applications depend on a hard-coded server or hostname.
UTF-8 Support
Microsoft is also unveiling UTF-8 support to give users more options for character data storage. With this improvement, you can compress your existing character data without writing additional routines, allowing you to save up to 50 percent on character data. You can also use external software to compress existing data to UTF-8.
These are just a few of the upgrades available in the new version of SQL Server 2019. The preview version is now available for Windows, Linux, and Docker.
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