What's new in SQL Server 2016

SQL Server 2016 Database Engine:

• You can now configure multiple tempDB database files during SQL Server installation and setup.
• New Query Store stores query texts, execution plans, and performance metrics within the database, allowing easy monitoring and troubleshooting of performance issues. A dashboard shows which queries consumed the most time, memory or CPU resources.
• Temporal tables are history tables which record all data changes, complete with the date and time they occurred.
• New built-in JSON support in SQL Server supports JSON imports, exports, parsing and storing.
• New PolyBase query engine integrates SQL Server with external data in Hadoop or Azure Blob storage. You can import and export data as well as executing queries.
• The new Stretch Database feature lets you dynamically, securely archive data from a local SQL Server database to an Azure SQL database in the cloud. SQL Server automatically queries both local and remote data in the linked databases.
• In-memory OLTP:
• Now supports FOREIGN KEY, UNIQUE and CHECK constraints, and native compiled stored procedures OR, NOT, SELECT DISTINCT, OUTER JOIN, and subqueries in SELECT.
• Supports tables up to 2TB (up from 256GB).
• Has column store index enhancements for sorting and Always On Availability Group support.
• New security features:
• Always Encrypted: When enabled, only the application that has the encryption key can access the encrypted sensitive data in the SQL Server 2016 database. The key is never passed to SQL Server.
• Dynamic Data Masking: If specified in the table definition, masked data is hidden from most users, and only users with UNMASK permission can see the complete data.
• Row Level Security: Data access can be restricted at the database engine level, so users see only what is relevant to them.

SQL Server 2016 Analysis Services (SSAS):

SQL Server 2016 Analysis Services provides improved performance, authoring, database management, filtering, processing, and much more for tabular model databases based on the 1200 compatibility level.

• SQL Server R Services integrate the R programming language, used for statistical analysis, into SQL Server.
• New Database Consistency Checker (DBCC) runs internally to detect potential data corruption issues.
• Direct Query, which queries live external data rather than importing it first, now supports more data sources, including Azure SQL, Oracle and Teradata.
• There are numerous new DAX (Data Access Expressions) functions.
• New Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Tabular namespace manages tabular mode instances and models.
• Analysis Services Management Objects (AMO) is re-factored to include a second assembly, Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Core.dll.

SQL Server 2016 Integration Services (SSIS):

• Support for Always On Availability Groups
• Incremental package deployment
• Always Encrypted support
• New ssis_logreader database-level role
• New custom logging level
• Column names for errors in the data flow
• New connectors
• Support for the Hadoop file system (HDFS)

SQL Server 2016 Master Data Services (MDS):

• Derived hierarchy improvements, including support for recursive and many-to-many hierarchies
• Domain-based attribute filtering
• Entity syncing for sharing entity data between models
• Approval workflows via changesets
• Custom indexes to improve query performance
• New permission levels for improved security
• Redesigned business rules management experience

SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services (SSRS):

Microsoft has thoroughly revamped Reporting Services in this release.

• New web Report Portal with KPI feature
• New Mobile Report Publisher
• Redesigned report rendering engine that supports HTML5
• New treemap and sunburst chart types

SQL Server 2016 Download Link : https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/evalcenter/evaluate-sql-server-2016