The Azure SQL Database V12 service version is generally available in the North Europe and West Europe regions. It will be available in all regions across the United States on February 9, 2015, and rolled out worldwide by March 1, 2015. This latest version of Azure SQL Database introduces near-complete SQL Server engine compatibility, greater support for larger databases, and expanded performance with Azure Premium service. Internal tests on over 600 million rows of data show query performance improvements of around five times in Azure SQL Database V12 Preview relative to the current version of Azure SQL Database and up to 100 times when applying the in-memory columnstore technology.
For more information, see
What’s new in Azure SQL Database (V12) service version.