The launch date for SQL Server 2012 is out of the bag: It's March 7.

On the SQL Server 2012 Launch site, Microsoft is featuring the agenda of the Webcast timed to coincide with launch.

(Launch, as Microsoft historians know, may or may not equate to general availability. RTM, or release to manufacturing, also may precede or follow product launches at Microsoft these days. In the case of SQL Server 2008 R2, Microsoft's release to manufacturing (RTM) of the product preceded by about a month the date on which most customers could actually get the bits.)

Microsoft Server and Tools chief Satya Nadella revealed last fall that SQL Server 2012 (codenamed "Denali") would launch in the early part of 2012. Microsoft delivered the final public test build of SQL Server 2012 in November 2011.

The March 7 launch event topic list includes everything from big data, to StreamInsight complex event processing, to the new data-visualization and analysis tools that are part of the SQL Server 2012 release.

Microsoft already has revealed much of its SQL Server 2012 pricing and licensing plans, including availability of a new business-intelligence (BI) SKU.