SQL Server 2012 SP1 which is build 11.0.300,0includes all of the fixes from SQL Server 2012 RTM CU1 and CU2, but not the fixes from CU3 and CU4.
SQL Server Service Packs get more thorough testing than cumulative updates , which means that those are frozen earlier. If you have already installed SQL Server 2012 RTM CU3 or CU4, then we advise you to wait until SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU1 is released.
Microsoft has released full slipstream images for SQL Server 2012 SP1, which lets you install a fresh copy of SQL Server 2012 that will have SP1 installed. (This will also work if you decide to do an in-place upgrade from a previous version of SQL Server (which we don’t recommend).
At the opening day of the SQL PASS Summit, Microsoft announced that it will be adding in-memory technology, codenamed Hekaton, into SQL Server.
the cost-savings and reduced management complexity it will achieve by folding in-memory technology into its core database, rather than making it a separate add-on.
“You will be able to take advantage of the hardware you already have and acclerate it by adding more memory,” said Doug Leland, General Manager of SQL Server Marketing.
Leland said Microsoft is seeing up to 50 times (not 50 percent — 50 times) performance improvements among the customers already involved in the Hekaton technical preview.
Microsoft Technical Fellow David Dewitt is one of the principals behind PolyBase. the next version of Microsft’s enterprise data-warehousing appliance, known as SQL Server 2012 Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW). This product, due in the first half of calendar 2013, will include a new data-processing engine (PolyBase,) which is designed to enable queries across relational data and non-relational Hadoop data.
