SQL Server 2012 Editions

SQL Server 2012 is available in three editions, which cumulatively add features.

SQL Server Standard edition, the entry-level version of the SQL Server online transaction processing (OLTP) database, includes support for up to 16 CPU cores and basic high availability functionality with 2-node failover clustering. It includes the SQL Server Data Tools (development tools integrated into Visual Studio 2010), multidimensional online analytic processing business intelligence (BI) included in earlier versions of SQL Server, as well as SQL Server Reporting Services.

The newly available SQL Server Business Intelligence edition includes several BI components new to SQL Server 2012 and supports the same CPU core and memory limits as Standard edition when used as an OLTP, but supports all the CPU cores supported by the edition of the Windows OS it is running on when used for BI. New features in the BI edition include a new data model for BI, the Business Intelligence Semantic Model (BISM), and updated PowerPivot for Excel and PowerPivot for SharePoint, which can now be used to provide data models for the new Power View self-service reporting feature. The BI edition also includes two features designed to ensure optimal data integrity, Master Data Services and Data Quality Services, designed to provide a single source of common master data used across an organization and perform data cleansing across data sources, respectively. Reporting Services in the BI edition also provides a new feature, Report Alerting, which can send reports automatically when data meets certain criteria.