Know What is New in SQL Server 2016 for Developers

Andrew Jackson | November 30th, 2015 | SQL Transaction Log | November 30th, 2015 |

SQL Server 2016 version has several promising New features for a database administrator and with this release of SQL Server 2016 version, Microsoft has provided a completely new model with necessary reformations. These new features in SQL Server, make the SQL data management a much more serene experience. Let us see some of the important modification done in this latest version;

1. Always Encryption

SQL Server 2016 new features are upgraded with Always Encrypted feature, which enables you to encrypt the SQL Server database. Those applications which call SQL Server will be able to access this encrypted data. This Always Encrypted lets client application owners to manage which application should get the access the confidential data of server. This is done by letting the client application have the encryption key which is never passed to server. This adds up as security benefit for the SQL Server database safety.

2. SQL Server 2016 JSON Support

The latest version of SQL Server adds up support to lingua franca of Web Applications: JSON i.e. Java Script Object Notation. Recently many databases have added this support and SQL 2016 also supports in similar manner like XML support is built in FOR JSON and OPENJSON. This facility allows parsing JSON formatted data which can be stored in relation format. With this JSON support users can take relational data and turn this data to JSON formatted data.

3. Dynamic Data Masking

This element has been added as an another new feature in SQL Server 2016 to customize the security of your data according to the viewers. Dynamic Data Masking allows users to mask the confidential columns of server data in a table for users who are not authorized for viewing this data. Users can define how the data should be masked according to the confidentiality of the data. For instance, a certain confidential data like personal mobile numbers are stored in a table and you want your staff should be able to view only last few digits then you can perform the settings accordingly. Those viewers or users who have full authorization can view complete details. Read here for how to implement dynamic data masking in SQL Server.

4. Multiple TempDB

If your server is based on multi-core machine, it is always better to have multiple tempdb data file. In previous versions, it was necessary to add the additional tempdb data files after server installation. But in this latest version, users can configure number of tempdb files installing SQL Server. This means that you will not need to manually add additional tempdb files.

5. PolyBase

PolyBase is another significant addition which allows querying distributed data sets. This feature of SQL Server 2016 will allow you to use T-SQL statements to query Hadoop. In this way, getting data from Hadoop without knowing the settings of Hadoop becomes easier. As data is stored across many applications and locations, PolyBase can be a better solution to leverage Server technology for accessing this data.

6. Row Level Security

SQL Server 2016 has restricted the access to row data using this row level security. This undoubtedly increases the security and allows the access to authorized candidate only. This row restriction is done by filter predicates, which is defined in inline table value function. This implementation of row security will cease the need of maintaining code to restrict data from certain logins. Using this SQL Server 2016 new feature, users can make sure that when anyone queries a table comprising row level security; they will not know if any row of data was filtered out.

7. Temporal Table

Temporal table is defined as a table holding old versions of rows within a base table. If the database is having temporal tables, SQL Server 2016 can automatically manage shifting old row versions to the temporal table whenever it is updated. Users who are planning to manage row versioning might find this modification quite helpful.

Conclusion:

The above-mentioned SQL Server 2016 new features describing the enhancement of new release version of SQL Server. While upgrading to this version you will meet with new mission-critical features of this version.