"Magpie, should we upgrade to SQL Server 2012? Will the new release help us?"

If you count on speed and detailed queries from your databases, then yes, SQL 2012 will help you out. SQL Server has been polished up, given major performance enhancements and sent out to the masses!

Where will it help? How about new high availability standards (you can failover whole groups of databases)? A new semantic model for BI is in there. PowerView speeds up data visualization, and ColumnStore Indexes speed up I/O.

There's one caveat though: Right now, you can't use SQL Server 2012 as the database backend for Lync Server 2010. SQL 2012 dropped DMO support, which Lync uses. When a fix is announced, we'll post it on our Lync Insider blog (so head over there!).

Download a trial edition of SQL Server 2012 here. Test out the new speeds for yourself!

Got a technical question you'd like to ask Magpie? Email her at magpie@planetmagpie.com.