As almost everyone out there is aware of the launch of SQL Server 2012 last week. Along with the launch Microsoft announced xVelocity in-memory technologies. This is an umbrella name for all the in-memory technologies. This includes re-branding of the Vertipaq engine that runs inside PowerPivot and Analysis Services 2012 tabular to “xVelocity in-memory analytics engine” and the term xVelocity will be used to refer to the Column Store Indexes feature in SQL Server 2012 database.

All this re-naming and re-branding does cause some confusion but again we’ll get used to it . I understand better with pictures and diagrams than plain text, so here is how I have sketched the new term “xVelocity”

xVelocity in-memory technologies

Reference links:
xVelocity and Analysis Services
Introducing xVelocity in-memory technologies in SQL Server 2012 for 10-100X performance
SQL Server 2012 – RTM
SQL Server 2012 – Resources

Hope this helps!