New Data Types: all new datatypes are fully supported; data in tables and indexed views exposing these types can be compared and synchronized without limitations

Date and Time – simplifying your work with date and time data, providing increased date range, fractional seconds precision, and time zone support:

• Date – defines a date within the accuracy of one day
• Time – defines a time of a day based on a 24-hour clock within the accuracy of 100 nanoseconds
• Datetimeoffset – defines a date that is combined with a time of a day that has time zone awareness and is based on a 24-hour clock within the accuracy of 100 nanoseconds
• Datetime2 – defines a date that is combined with a time of day that is based on 24-hour clock within the accuracy of 100 nanoseconds: can be considered as an extension of the existing datetime type

Hierarchy – allowing you to construct relationships among data elements within a table

• Hierarchyid – represents position in a hierarchy and sets the desired relationship between rows

Spatial – predefined CLR data types in SQL Server allowing you to represent information about the physical location and shape of geometric objects

• Geography – represents data in a round-earth coordinate system and stores ellipsoidal (round-earth) data, such as GPS latitude and longitude coordinates
• Geometry – represents data in a Euclidean (flat) coordinate system

Enhancements in column properties: the data from columns having these attributes is compared seamlessly to any other column

• Sparse columns - ordinary columns that have an optimized storage for null values
• XML COLUMN_SET - a column of this type is only materialized when selected, and will return you all the non-NULL sparse columns in a row as an XML BLOB. COLUMN_SET column is treated as a calculated column and as any of them can be compared but cannot be sycnhronized
• FILESTREAM varbinary (max) – the new way of storing BLOB data allowing you to store the data in the file system. Unlike columns defined with FILESTREAM attribute the ordinary varbinary(max) columns store their data in the tables. Such columns are treated as ordinary BLOB’s and the data from them get compared and synchronized the same way

Note: The only limitation is that FILESTREAM filegroups aren’t documented and thus tables with FILESTREAM columns aren’t grouped in the TOC

Data compression in tables, indexed views, indexes and constraints: differences in data of the compressed objects are detected seamlessly to uncompressed ones and also fully supported for synchronization

• Data (Row and Page) Compression – allows you to compress whole tables; can be configured for a whole table and/or indexed view for each partition in case of tables. ROW compression means storing fixed length data in variable length storage format and PAGE compression means minimizing the data redundancy

ApexSQL Data Diff 2008 compares and synchronizes data up to 3x faster than previous versions.

No need to restore database backups to compare them. ApexSQL Data Diff treats database backups like they’re live databases.

ApexSQL Data Diff 2008 allows you to choose how you want comparison results to be displayed. Select the colour and background that best help you pinpoint different or equal data.

Source and Destination columns as well as different rows are visually differentiated using colours of your choice

Click Here to see a full gallery of customized ApexSQL Data Diff screen shots.

Get help straight from the interface. Use ApexSQL Data Diff’s balloon tips and refined user interface to get to know the application as quickly as possible.

Immediately find Identical and Incomparable objects in one click via tabs in the result set

ApexSQL Data Diff offers you several ways to view the data comparison results as HTML. You can also use Printable version of the report.

The Synchronization wizard is designed for “one-click” synchronization using default options.

Or customize the synchronization by going through the other steps. You can even show or hide advanced steps using the wizard’s advanced button.

ApexSQL Data Diff offers a powerful console application allowing the tool to be used in automated processes, to be run nightly, scheduled, unattended etc. All relevant GUI operations can be performed via command line interface. The Command Line Interface offers scores of option switches, support for XML argument files as well as standard switches like Test and Help.