Differences between Sql server 2005, 2008, 2008r2, 2012

MS SQL Server 2005

• Exception Handling was introduces.
• Varchar(Max) data type introduces.
• Bulk Copy Update introduces.
• Previous version of Sql server was in two part ,enterprise manager and query analyzer ,both are combined as SQL Server management Studio (SSMS).

 MS SQL Server 2008

•  Encrypt the entire database introduced in 2008.
•  XML datatype is used.
•  Date and time are separately used for date and time datatype.
•  Table datatype introduced.
•  Central Management Server (CMS) was introduced.
•  Filestream is introduced
•  Merge Statement  introduced.

SQL Server 2008 R2

•   PowerPivot for SharePoint,
•   PowerPivot for Excel,
•   Multi-Server Administration introduced .

SQL Server 20012

•  Exceptions handling with THROW option introduced .
• The BCP Utility and SQLCMD Utility utilities enhanced with -K option, which allows to specify read-only access to a secondary replica in an AlwaysOn availability group.
• ORDER BY Clause have OFFSET / FETCH options introduced for paging .
• TRY_CONVERT() and FORMAT() introduced .
• SQL server 2012 has unlimited concurrent connections.