Microsoft® SQL Server 2012 Unleashed

What’s New in Using XML in SQL Server 2012

The release of SQL Server 2012 includes a variety of significant XML feature and behavior changes, including the following:

Introduction of the Selective XML Index (SXI), a highly efficient storage and lookup mechanism that brings huge increases in speed and flexibility and big decreases in storage requirements. (SXIs are covered in depth in this chapter in the section, “Indexing and Full-Text Indexing of xml Columns.”)

A behavior change to the exist() xml data type method when comparing NULL values (covered ...