What's New in SQL Server 2012

SEQUENCE

You are no doubt used to IDENTITY and how this works with a seed and increment value. SEQUENCE is structured in a very similar way, but with fewr limitations, giving it a welcome flexibility.

A SEQUENCE object is created at the database level but, unlike an IDENTITY property, it can be used across multiple tables. An IDENTITY value is generated when you insert a row into a table and it cannot be updated. You can retrieve the SEQUENCE value at any time and reset it without altering its previous value, and even set a minimum and maximum value. Let us look at a simple example:

CREATE SEQUENCE mySequence AS int
START WITH 1
INCREMENT BY 1

As you can see, mySequence is now available for use by all tables in the database:

We have not used the ...