SQL Server 2016 Standard Edition Now Has Many Enterprise Edition Features.
'Starting with today’s release of SQL Server 2016 Service Pack 1, Standard Edition now has a lot more of the features of Enterprise Edition. Here’s the list from Microsoft’s announcement post
- Performance features – in-memory OLTP (Hekaton), in-memory columnstore, operational analytics
- Data warehousing features – partitioning, compression, CDC, database snapshots
- Some security features – Always Encrypted, row-level security, and dynamic data masking
The updated edition comparison page (Update 16 Nov – I’m hearing this grid isn’t quite right still) shows that these things still aren’t in Standard Edition:
- Full Always On Availability groups (multiple databases, readable secondaries)
- Master Data Services, DQS
- Serious security features – TDE, auditing
- Serious BI – mobile reports, fuzzy lookups, advanced multi-dimensional models and tabular models, parallelism in R, stretch database
Why would they be so generous? It’s simple: they need to drive SQL Server 2016 adoption. Lately, Standard Edition users just haven’t had a big reason to upgrade.
And now they do. If you’re on pre-2016 builds, it’s time to start having 2016 upgrade discussions with management. Go get ’em, tiger, and check out the full list of new and improved features.'...
Announcing SQL Server on Linux public preview, first preview of next release of SQL Server
'Today, we are excited to announce the public preview of the next release of SQL Server on Linux and Windows, which brings the power of SQL Server to both Windows – and for the first time ever – Linux. SQL Server enables developers and organizations to build intelligent applications with industry-leading performance and security technologies using their preferred language and environment. With the next release of SQL Server, you can develop applications with SQL Server on Linux, Windows, Docker, or macOS (via Docker) and then deploy to Linux, Windows, or Docker, on-premises or in the cloud.
We have seen strong reception for the private preview to date with more than 50% of Fortune 500 companies applying for the private preview.'
Microsoft Connectors 4.0 for Oracle and Teradata is now available for SSIS 2016
'With the SSIS 2016 officially released in May 2016, I am now pleased to announce that the Microsoft Connectors 4.0 for Oracle and Teradata is also available for SSIS 2016. We worked really hard to get this out on time to align with the SSIS 2016 RTM time, so that you do not have to wait anymore in case you need this connectors 4.0 when moving to SSIS 2016. This connectors add additional supports for Oracle 12.c and Teradata 15 / 15.1. Enjoy!'
What’s new in SQL Server 2016 SP1 for Reporting Services
'The release of SQL Server 2016 Service Pack 1 brings several enhancements and fixes to SQL Server Reporting Services. In today’s post, we’ll highlight some notable items that are new in this update.'
SQL Server 2016 Service Pack 1 (SP1) released
'With cloud first strategy, the SQL Product Team has observed great success and adoption of SQL Server 2016 compared to any previous releases. Today, we are even more excited and pleased to announce the availability of SQL Server 2016 Service Pack 1 (SP1). With SQL Server 2016 SP1, we are making key improvements allowing a consistent programmability surface area for developers and organizations across SQL Server editions. This will enable you to build advanced applications that scale across editions and cloud as you grow. Developers and application partners can now build to a single programming surfacewhen creating or upgrading intelligent applications, and use the edition which scales to the application’s needs.
In addition to a consistent programmability experience across all editions, SQL Server 2016 SP1 also introduces all the supportability and diagnostics improvements first introduced in SQL 2014 SP2, as well as new improvements and fixes centered around performance, supportability, programmability and diagnostics based on the learnings and feedback from customers and SQL community.'...
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlreleaseservices/sql-server-2016-service-pack-1-sp1-released/
Power BI Desktop October Feature Summary
'Today we’re releasing the October Power BI Desktop update, which is filled with several exciting new features! We’ve added several new reporting features, including the much asked for date slicer and snap to grid. We also are releasing several new analytical features including grouping and a top N filter.
Here’s the complete list of October updates:
Report View
- Date slicer
- Report gridlines and snap to grid (Preview)
- Data label improvements
- Map formatting options
- Improved date axis range formatting
Analytics
- Grouping
- Binning
- Top N filter
- Include/Exclude data points
- R-powered custom visuals
Data Connectors
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Financials
- OLEDB
- Mixpanel
Query Editing Improvements
- Support for table parameters in “Invoke Function” dialog
Other Improvements
- Diagnostic information in the “About” dialog'...
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-desktop-october-feature-summary/
SQL Server 2016 Distributed Availability Groups
'One of the new features in SQL2016 is the ability to distribute availability groups across clusters. This solution makes high availability and disaster recovery geographically dispersed.
Distributed Availability groups allows you to associate availability groups on two different Windows Server Failover Clusters.'...
Simple Experiment with SQL Server In-Memory OLTP is 79 Times Faster
'In-Memory OLTP in SQL Server is a very powerful feature. In one of my previous tips, I suggested three approaches you can follow in order to get an indication whether you can benefit from using this feature for your specific workload. In this tip I will present a simple, yet comprehensive example of workload processing that was optimized using In-Memory OLTP which led to a performance boost up to 79x times faster processing over disk-based execution.'...
Questions About SQL Server Security and Access Control You Were Too Shy to Ask
'For many developers, database security and Access control is just something that gets in the way of development work. However, several recent security breaches have had devastating consequences and have caused a change in attitude about the value to any organisation of having database applications that meet industry standards for access control and security. The problem, however is in admitting that you have a problem and finding answers to those problems you are just too shy to ask in public.'...