It's been a little over a year since SQL Server 2012 was released in its RTM version. In that time, I've been using it on most of my machines for testing and demos. I like working with the new features and enhancements, and I think this is the best version of SQL Server yet. However I also keep a version of SQL Server 2008 running in a virtual machine since this is the version that runs SQLServerCentral.
In the last three years, we've continued to run the site on SQL Server 2008 because it works well. We don't need the newer features, and since we have a clustered pair of instances, an upgrade would be a substantial cost. That cost is hard to justify when there isn't a business benefit I can point to. I'm sure we could write more efficient code with the new T-SQL enhancements and improve performance, but since we've invested in beefy hardware, I'm not sure we would gain much with an upgrade. Quite a few of the people I've talked to in the last couple years feel the same way.
This week I'm curious to see if any of you are looking to upgrade. I know for new systems it might make sense to just install the latest version of SQL Server, but what about existing systems? The question this week is:
Are you upgrading any existing systems to SQL Server 2012 and why?
I'm looking for those drivers that provide enough benefit for you to upgrade. There might be features you are taking advantage of that others can use, so share with us the exact reasons for your upgrade. As budgets shrink, especially for systems that are working well, it can be hard to justify upgrades across the board for all your servers, but there are sometimes reasons to upgrade individual instances.
Steve Jones
The Voice of the DBA Podcasts
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