The SQL implementation of relational databases has been around in their current form for something like 25 years (since System R and Ingres). Even the main (loosely adhered to) standard is ANSI-92 (although there were later updates) is a good 15 years old.

What innovations can you think of with SQL based databases in the last ten years or so. I am specifically excluding OLAP, Columnar and other non-relational (or at least non SQL) innovations. I also want to exclude 'application server' type features and bundling (like reporting tools)

Although the basic approach has remained fairly static, I can think of:

• Availability
• Ability to handle larger sets of data
• Ease of maintenance and configuration
• Support for more advanced data types (blob, xml, unicode etc)

Any others that you can think of?