FileTable to Blend SQL Server, Files

Applications that need to store large objects, such as Office documents or video files, in a combination of SQL Server and the Windows file system may benefit from FileTable, a new feature in SQL Server 2012. With FileTable, large objects stored within SQL Server databases can be accessed through both SQL Server and Windows file system interfaces, enabling storage within SQL Server but also enabling file system access for existing Windows applications. FileTable will benefit applications that use databases to index files, including SQL Server 2012’s new statistical semantic search, which enables full-text searches of databases by indexing stored documents and text fields. FileTable could also prove useful for applications that store documents and other kinds of unstructured data in SQL Server, such as employee rÉsumÉ search engines or legal discovery applications, as well as classic business applications (such as customer relationship management [CRM] applications) that need to handle documents.