In some strange way, Habr has bypassed the news about the release of SQL Server 2012 RTM. The release dates of the public version are also known - it will be released on April 1, 2012. You can download RTM, for example, here (you can also find a download link for the Feature Pack): www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/get-sql- server / try-it.aspx
The list of innovations is quite extensive, but I would like to point out the following: 1) Changes in licensing (from now on SQL Server will be licensed depending on the number of processor cores) 2) AlwaysOn Availability Groups (clustering + mirroring + replication) 3) LocalDB - standalone version of SQL Server