SQL Server 2014 CTP1 released on 26-Jun-2013, highly focused on data warehousing and business intelligence (BI) enhancements made possible through new in-memory capabilities built in to the core Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). As memory prices have fallen dramatically, 64-bit architectures have become more common and usage of multicore servers has increased, Microsoft has sought to tailor SQL Server to take advantage of these trends.
Hekaton is a Greek term for “factor of 100.” The aspirational goal of the team was to see 100 times performance acceleration levels. Hekaton also is a giant mythical creature, as well as a Dominican thrash-metal band, for what it’s worth.
In-Memory OLTP (formally known as code name “Hekaton”) is a new database engine component, fully integrated into SQL Server. It is optimized for OLTP workloads accessing memory resident data. In-Memory OLTP allows OLTP workloads to achieve remarkable improvements in performance and reduction in processing time. Tables can be declared as ‘memory optimized’ to take advantage of In-Memory OLTP’s capabilities. In-Memory OLTP tables are fully transactional and can be accessed using Transact-SQL. Transact-SQL stored procedures can be compiled into machine code for further performance improvements if all the tables referenced are In-Memory OLTP tables. The engine is designed for high concurrency and blocking is minimal. “Memory-optimized tables are stored completely differently than disk-based tables and these new data structures allow the data to be accessed and processed much more efficiently”
New buffer pool extension support to non-volatile memory such as solid state drives (SSDs) will increase performance by extending SQL Server in-memory buffer pool to SSDs for faster paging.
Here is very good explanation from Mr. Brent Ozar’s article on this ( http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2013/06/almost-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-next-version-of-sql-server/ )
The New Feature xVelocity ColumnStore provides in-memory capabilities for data warehousing workloads that result in dramatic improvement for query performance, load speed, and scan rate, while significantly reducing resource utilization (i.e., I/O, disk and memory footprint). The new ColumnStore complements the existing xVelocity ColumnStore Index, providing higher compression, richer query support and updateability of the ColumnStore giving us the even faster load speed, query performance, concurrency and even lower price per terabyte.
Extending Memory to SSDs: Seamlessly and transparently integrates solid-state storage into SQL Server by using SSDs as an extension to the database buffer pool, allowing more in-memory processing and reducing disk IO.
Enhanced High Availability : New AlwaysOn features availability Groups now support up to 8 secondary replicas that remain available for reads at all times, even in the presence of network failures. Failover Cluster Instances now support Windows Cluster Shared Volumes, improving the utilization of shared storage and increasing failover resiliency. Finally, various supportability enhancements make AlwaysOn easier to use.
Improved Online Database Operations: includes single partition online index rebuild and managing lock priority for table partition switch, greatly increasing enterprise application availability by reducing maintenance downtime impact.
For more details please refer SQL_Server_Hekaton_CTP1_White_Paper and for SQL Server 2014 CTP1 software click on http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/dn205290.aspx (The Microsoft SQL Server 2014 CTP1 release is only available in the X64 architecture.)
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