SQL Server 2014 support by ApexSQL tools

In order to maintain ApexSQL tools compatibility with latest Microsoft SQL Server versions early, we have included SQL Server 2014 support in our development cycles since first Microsoft officially announced it. As the result of the development, all ApexSQL tools support SQL Server 2014:

To implement SQL Server 2014 support both quickly and effectively, our developers had to overcome several challenges.

Procedures that access SQL Server system tables had to be modified as the structure of these tables is changed with each new SQL Server version. ApexSQL tools for SQL Server DBAs require precise definition of the system tables schema in order to be able to retrieve required information (e.g. lost data). So, additional code was added to the tools to handle changes in SQL Server 2014.

The structure of MDF and LDF files was updated, so code of our tools that read information from these files (ApexSQL Log, ApexSQL Recover, and ApexSQL Restore) had to be updated, too.

Regarding the ApexSQL tools designed for SQL Developers, the following SQL Server changes had to be supported within internal scripter and parser modules:

– The DELAYED_DURABILITY option for COMMIT, BEGIN ATOMIC, BEGIN TRANSACTION, and SET database options
– BACKUP TO URL and WITH ENCRYPTION options for backup creation queries
– BEGIN ATOMIC with blocks
– HASH indexes and primary keys syntax
– MEMORY_OPTIMIZED and DURABILITY options for memory-optimized tables
– CLUSTERED columnstore indexes
– NATIVE_COMPILATION for stored procedures along with options specific to such procedures
– INCREMENTAL for statistics CREATE and UPDATE queries
– RESAMPLE ON PARTITIONS for UPDATE STATISTICS queries
– MEMORY_OPTIMIZED for table type creation queries

For more information about system requirements and supported Windows, SQL Server, and application (e.g. Visual Studio) versions, visit the system requirements page.

Related posts:

  1. SQL Shack round-up – October 17th, 2014 – Performance reporting and auditing in SQL Server, Cryptographic features, Continuous integration with SSDT and TFS, and Index strategies
  2. SQL Shack round up – August 15th, 2014 – Review SQL Server failed logins, Performance dashboard reports in SQL Server 2014, SQL Server Management Studio performance reports, and SQL Server commands – Dynamic SQL
  3. SQL Shack round-up – May 1st, 2014 – SQL Server disaster recovery, Policy Based Management, SQL Server statistics, SQL Server Business Intelligence, and the SQL Server sequence object feature
  4. SQL Shack round-up – June 15th, 2014 – SQL Server Business Intelligence, SQL Server cursors, and SQL Server Management Studio configuration
  5. SQL Shack round-up – July 3rd, 2014 – SQL Server cursor performance problems and exception handling in SQL Server 2012
June 30, 2014