What’s new in SAP SQL Anywhere 10?

Quick overview

SQL Anywhere 10 modernised the former "Adaptive Server Anywhere" stack with three headline advances: parallel query execution, built-in database mirroring, and snapshot isolation—all delivered under the new SQL Anywhere brand with RSA encryption now bundled. Subsequent 10.0.1 maintenance rounded out the release with client-side statement caching, ANSI SQL flagging tools, collation-tailoring support, and a wave of admin/web-service tweaks. Together they let teams run mixed OLTP/analytics workloads faster, keep databases continuously available, and code against a stricter, more standards-aware engine.

1. Engine & concurrency

• Intra-query parallelism lets a single statement farm scans, joins and sorts across multiple CPU cores; it auto-engages when active queries are fewer than processors, boosting heavy reports without manual hints.
• A new client statement cache (enabled by default in 10.0.1) keeps frequently prepared SQL ready on the server; hits/misses are tracked via fresh properties and the max_client_statements_cached option.
• Plan caching extends to simple INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE that qualify for query-bypass, trimming parse time on OLTP bursts.

2. High availability & recovery

• Database mirroring debuts, pairing a primary, mirror and optional arbiter server for synchronous or asynchronous fail-over. New switches (-sn, -xp, -xf) and events (MirrorServerDisconnect, MirrorFailover) handle routing, preferred-server selection and scripted failover.
• Snapshot isolation lets readers work from a versioned copy, slashing blocking and deadlocks without changing application code.
• Parallel archive backups, extra sa_conn_info lock columns and larger default caches on NetWare tighten maintenance windows and diagnostics.

3. SQL language & standards

• An expanded SQL Flagger checks any statement against SQL-92/99/2003 or UltraLite subsets through the new SQLFLAGGER function and sa_ansi_standard_packages procedure.
• DML and set operators (SELECT … OPTION, UNION/EXCEPT/INTERSECT) now accept per-statement tuning directives, overriding optimization_goal, isolation_level, etc., for targeted tuning.
• Collation tailoring on database creation (or dbinit -z/-zn) allows case, accent and punctuation sensitivity to be configured per locale; the HasCollationTailoring property signals support.

4. Administration & ops

• Feature-statistics and error reporting utilities collect anonymised usage data and crash dumps, speeding issue resolution.
• The Support utility (dbsupport) can submit those stats at any time; SADIAGDIR defines the storage path.
• Wizard refreshes forbid unloading to pre-10 formats and drop port-number requirements on HP-UX, easing upgrades and multi-server hosts.

5. Security & governance

• RSA transport encryption is now included out-of-the-box, with simple/strong database-file encryption selectable at create-time via an extended CREATE DATABASE … ENCRYPTION clause.
• Login-policy rules, default-timestamp increments up to 1 000 000 µs, and deterministic-encryption toggles harden governance in regulated deployments.

6. Web services & integration

• A new SET sub-clause on CREATE PROCEDURE/FUNCTION tweaks HTTP version, chunking and SOAP operation names;
• Header suppression and HTTPS on macOS widen deployment options.

7. Mobility & synchronisation

• MobiLink 10 adds a native Oracle ODBC driver, a graphical server-log viewer and lower‐overhead memory management.
• QAnywhere introduces dynamic network addressing and per-download size caps.

Suggested next steps

• Benchmark parallel plans versus serial on your heaviest reporting queries.
• Pilot mirroring in dev: script a SET PARTNER FAILOVER to validate auto-switch behaviour.
• Turn on snapshot isolation for read-mostly applications and compare deadlock metrics.
• Enable statement caching in client libraries and monitor ClientStmtCacheHits to size the cache.
• When rebuilding databases, apply collation tailoring to match end-user locale rules.