SQL Server 2016 SP1 Released

Views 1838

Microsoft announced earlier today the release of SQL Server 2016 SP1, now this would not normally stir up a lot of noise in the community, however with the release of this service pack, the SQL Server landscape has changed. By downloading and applying this service pack on your SQL Server 2016 environment, regardless of the edition you are running (Enterprise, Standard, Express, Web, LocalDB) there are now even more features available across the editions.

Key Improvements allowing a consistent programmability surface area for developers and organizations

Microsoft are now making it easier for you to build complex/advanced applications in your organisation regardless of the edition you have. Enterprise Edition is still the optimal edition with all of the bells and whistles, but this is a massive step towards big and better applications running on SQL Server keeping up with the ever changing landscape of business requirements.

So what do we get in our non Enterprise environments when we apply SQL Server 2016 SP1?

Feature Standard Web Express LocalDB
Always Encrypted Yes Yes Yes Yes
Change Data Capture Yes Yes No No
Compression Yes Yes Yes Yes
Database Snapshot Yes Yes Yes Yes
Dynamic Data Masking Yes Yes Yes Yes
Fine grained auditing Yes Yes Yes Yes
In-memory Columnstore Yes Yes Yes Yes
In-memory OLTP Yes Yes Yes No
Multiple filestream containers Yes Yes Yes Yes
Partitioning Yes Yes Yes Yes
PolyBase Yes Yes Yes No
Row-level Security Yes Yes Yes Yes

 

The table above outlines a number of features that are now available in non Enterprise Edition configurations, there are still a number of Enterprise Only features but this is a massive step forward and a great reason if you are not on SQL Server 2016, to really think about migrating to SQL Server 2016. For a full breakdown of have a look at the SQL Server 2016 SP1 editions datasheet.

Apart from lighting up these features that previously were available in Enterprise Edition, SP1 does have the usual fixes and updates that we need to apply to our environments to ensure that they stay stable.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Warwick

I am a Microsoft Data Platform MVP as well as a Microsoft Certified Master working as the Principal Consultant here at SQL Masters Consulting. When I am not working with the SQL Server Stack I like to get away to the Snow and spend time Snowboarding.

Search