Introduction of SQL Server 2012

Hi All,

let's talk about SQL server 2012  as it's a new trend in  SQL server products and released with new features.
SQL Server 2012 released on April 1,2012.
Now We have SP1 for SQL Server 2012. In RTM there were major issues and those were fixed in SP1(Error : Unable to creating the Packages and Maintenance Plan in SQL server 2012 RTM)

Two types of licensing is available for SQL Server 2012 Enterprise edition: Core-Based Licensing and Server+CAL Licensing.

Prerequisites for Installing the SQL server 2012.
1) .Net Frem Work 3.5 SP1
2)SQL Server Native Client
3)SQL Server Setup support files
 4)SQL server 2012 runs on computer with NTFS file systems and  also runs on FAT32 file systems but it's not recommend as it's less secure than NTFS file systems.
5)SQL Server 2012 requires a minimum of 6 GB of available hard-disk space.
6)Internet Explorer 7 or a later version is required for Microsoft Management Console (MMC), SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT), the Report Designer component of Reporting Services, and HTML Help.
7)Windows PowerShell 2.0 is an installation prerequisite for Database Engine components and SQL Server Management Studio

• If you install SQL Server 2012 on a computer with the Windows Vista SP2 or Windows Server 2008 SP2 operating system,
  
• If you install SQL Server 2012 on a computer with the Windows 7 SP1 or Windows server 2008 R2 SP1 or Windows Server 2012 or Windows 8 operating system,
  

SQL Server 2012 supports upgrade from the following versions of SQL Server:

• SQL Server 2005 SP4 or later
  
• SQL Server 2008 SP2 or later
  
• SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 or later
  
  
  • SQL Server 32-bit editions can be upgraded to SQL Server 2012 on the 32-bit subsystem (WOW64) of a 64-bit server.
    
  • SQL Server 64-bit versions can be upgraded to SQL Server 2012 64-bit server only.
    
  
    
  Note :  SQL Server 2012 supports upgrade from only the following versions: SQL 2005 SP4 or SQL 2008 SP2 or SQL 2008 R2 SP1. You will be not able to migrate from SQL 2000 to 2012 directly. Migration from 2000 to 2012
  
  You will have to make the migration in two steps:
   Step 1: Make a first migration from SQL 2000 to SQL 2008 for instance. You need to be SQL 2000 SP4, then follow this step : Migration SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2008  Step 2: Make a second migration from SQL Server 2008 to 2012.
  
  
  The following scenarios are not supported for SQL Server 2012 failover clusters.
  
  • SQL Server 2012 Enterprise to SQL Server 2012 Developer, Standard, or Enterprise Evaluation.
    
  • SQL Server 2012 Developer to SQL Server 2012 Standard or Enterprise Evaluation.
    
  • SQL Server 2012 Standard to SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Evaluation.
    
  • SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Evaluation to SQL Server 2012 Standard.
    

SQL Server Database Engine object	Maximum sizes/numbers SQL Server (32-bit)	Maximum sizes/numbers SQL Server (64-bit)

Database size	524,272 terabytes	524,272 terabytes
Databases per instance of SQL Server	32,767	32,767
Filegroups per database	32,767	32,767
Files per database	32,767	32,767
File size (data)	16 terabytes	16 terabytes
File size (log)	2 terabytes	2 terabytes

Rows per table Limited by available storage Limited by available storage Tables per database3 Limited by number of objects in a database Limited by number of objects in a database Partitions per partitioned table or index    1,000 Important Creating a table or index with more than 1,000 partitions is possible on a 32-bit system, but is not supported. 15,000