In less than a month, Microsoft will make the new edition of its SQL Server 2016 database software generally available to users, the company said today. The product will be released on June 1 to all users, including new users, MSDN subscribers, and existing customers.
All four versions of SQL Server 2016 will be available at that time, including Enterprise (pictured above), Standard, Express and Developer. The latter edition includes the full feature set of the Enterprise Edition, and will be freely available for development and test use, but not for use in production settings.
Built-In Analytics
SQL Server 2016 will allow users to build critical intelligent applications with what is the most secure database and the highest performance data warehouse, according to Microsoft. The new edition also offers end-to-end mobile business intelligence on any device, in-database advanced analytics and in-memory capabilities optimized for all workloads, the company said.
Last month Microsoft said that that the SQL Server 2016 Developer edition will be a free download, enabling development of the latest release’s full capabilities.
SQL Server 2016 is equipped with a number of new features not available in its predecessors. Those include a new Stretch Database function lets users store some data in on-premise databases and ship data that’s used less frequently to Microsoft’s Azure cloud. Any application connected to a database using the latter feature can still see the data.
Microsoft said SQL Server 2016 also comes with applications that offer real-time operational intelligence by combining built-in advanced analytics and in-memory technology without having to move the data or taking away from performance. The software’s data warehousing comes with enhanced in-memory columnstore that increases query performance by more than 100 times as compared to disk based solutions.
Columnstore refers to the standard for storing and querying large data warehousing fact tables. With SQL Server 2016, users can also access optimized MPP (massively parallel processing) scale-out software that can be combined with scale-out appliance architecture using Microsoft’s Analytics Platform System.
Encryption Technology
On the security side, SQL Server 2016 comes with Always Encrypted technology that protects user data at rest and in motion without impacting database performance. It also contains an end-to-end mobile business intelligence product, and offers users the ability to manage data on any device. Mobile and traditional reports can also be managed from a Web portal.
The company said the new edition of SQL Server is ideal for new big data solutions that must combine relational data with non-relational data, thanks to built-in PolyBase technology that lets users query structured and unstructured data with the simplicity of Transact-SQL, Microsoft’s and Sybase’s proprietary extension to SQL.
Earlier this year, Microsoft surprised many observers by announcing that it would someday release SQL Server on Linux, perhaps indicating that the company intends to make its tools available even on platforms it doesn’t control.
To bolster its rollout of SQL Server 2016, Microsoft has offered to let users move their Oracle databases to SQL Server and receive the necessary licenses of SQL Server, free with software assurance.
Image Credit: SQL Server 2016 Enterprise via Microsoft.
