Windows Server 2012 R2: a first look

SQL Server 14 introduces a new database engine optimised for in-memory data, code-named Hekaton. This does not replace the existing engine, but is an option for specified tables that can exist only in memory, with remarkable speed improvements, faster by a factor of 20 or more.

High Availability in SQL Server now supports Cluster Shared Volumes, and the maximum number of secondary replicas has increased from four to eight.