What’s new in SQL Server 2016

SQL Server 2016 has been release some time ago. This new version contains a lot of new features and possibilities, but you might wonder if it’s worth the effort of updating.

The answer to that question will be most likely be ‘YES’, but you need to be careful *).

If you’d like to know what has changed, I’ll refer you to the following link:

What’s New in SQL Server 2016 | Microsoft Docs

*  Before upgrading I advise you to check what the new version does to YOUR workload. With this new version that’s even more important than before. If preparations are not performed as needed, performance may suffer heavily instead of improve. These issues can be avoided though, and the performance can improve hugely. But that only works after thorough testing and the right preparations before migration.

SQL 2016 SP1 brings enterprise features to other editions

In SQL Server 2016 SP1 features that used to only be available in the enterprise-edition are also available in the other editions, even in the express-edition!

Think of features as datacompression, partitioning and ‘always-encrypted’.

Unfortunately online indexrebuilds will still be an enterprise-only feature. Nevertheless the new features in the non-enterprise-editions can save companies a lot of money!

Be careful when you remove SP1 without thorough research when you are using the new extra features, this may lead to serious problems and corruption.

See also https://technet.microsoft.com/nl-nl/windows/cc645993(v=sql.90) and https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-editions