Preview Feedback Improves SQL Server 2016 in CTP 3.2

• SQL Server and Stretch Database technology

Editor’s Note: This blog was originally published in May 2015 and has been updated to reflect the latest SQL Server 2016 Community Technology Previews, 3.1 and 3.2.

Since the Microsoft SQL Server product team first released a preview of SQL Server 2016, as described below this update, they’ve taken feedback from users who suggested ways to improve or even fix what some consider broken. Some of those suggestions were used in SQL Server 2016 Community Technology Preview 3.2, which is available for download.

CTP 3.1

The SQL Server 2016 Community Technology Preview (CTP) 3.1 fully embraced the “Cloud First” tenet, as this release build was deployed to SQL Azure Database service first, running in production prior to the release build.

In SQL Server 2016 CTP 3.1, available for download, or in an Azure VM, enhancements included:

New In-Memory OLTP improvements, including Unique indexes, LOB data types, and Indexes with NULLable key columns
Programmability improvement for the AT TIME ZONE clause
Enhancements to SQL Server Analysis Services
PowerPivot and SSRS/Power View are now available for SharePoint Server 2016 Beta 2

CTP 3.2

SQL Server 2016 CTP 3.2 became available for download in mid-December and added a number of Mobile BI additions and enhancements.

According to Microsoft, the following enhancements also have been made in the latest CTP:

SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) features improvements to the XEvents wizard to allow the use of templates when connected to an Azure v12 server, user interface improvements to AlwaysEncrypted wizards and dialogs, and more improvements outlined in theSSMS blog post.
SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) updates allow scripting in SSMS, creation of calculated tables, and DirectQuery for models with the 1200 compatibility level. (SSAS team blog post).
SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) now includes enhancements for the new connection experience for Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL Database which was introduced in the CTP 3.1.(SSDT team blog post) .
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) enhancements include HDFS-to-HDFS copy support, as well as Hadoop connectivity improvements.

Community Preview 2.3 & Satya Nadella on SQL Server 2016

Report Rendering for Modern Browsers

The product team forked a new renderer that outputs HTML5, saying this “sheds the baggage of legacy browsers and their quirks. We want your reports to look correct and consistent across modern browsers.”

As this is a work in progress that might have some issues, the product team enabled switching back to Compatibility Mode if needed during this preview phase.,

Report Builder with a Modern Theme

The current version of Report Builder uses an Office 2007-era theme. SQL Server 2016 has an updated version with a modern dark gray theme. Updated icons can be expected in a future CTP. Developers who prefer a Visual-Studio integrated report design environment can look forward to a preview of SQL Server Data Tools for Visual Studio 2015 later this year.

Other Improvements

Other changes in CTP Preview 2.3 include:

Row Level Security is now supported with In-memory OLTP tables.
Core Engine Scalability improvement is made available in this release – dynamically partition thread safe memory objects by NUMA node or by CPU.
In-memory data warehouse (columnStore) performance optimizations, NCCI can now be created on tables with triggers, enabled with CDC/Change Tracking.
SQL Server Integration Service (SSIS) released oData v4 protocol support, SSIS Error Column support, and advanced logging levels.
Query Execution with improved diagnostics for memory grant usage in this release.

Read more about these changes on the SQL Server team’s blog and at the SQL Server engineering team’s blog.

Test the Preview

To experience the new features in SQL Server 2016 and the new rapid release model, download the preview or try the preview by using a virtual machine in Microsoft Azure.

Product Team Wants Feedback

SQL Server 2016 still is a work in progress, and its product team wants more feedback on the Reporting Services forum, or via email. The engineering team suggests joining the discussion at Stack Overflow, and make suggestions via Microsoft’s Connect tool.

May 12, 2015

SQL Server 2016 will be the biggest leap forward you have ever seen, at least, that’s the word from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Most of us will get our chance to start figuring that out when the public preview comes out this summer.

The benefits Microsoft promised were many, and if delivered this might be the big leap Nadella has claimed.
Here’s a brief look at some of them:

Enhanced in-memory performance provides faster transactions and faster queries than disk-based relational databases and real-time operational analytics
New Always Encrypted technology helps protect your data “at rest and in motion, on-premises and in the cloud” with encryption at the application level
Built-in advanced analytics provide the scalability and performance benefits of building and running your advanced analytics algorithms directly in the core SQL Server transactional database
Business insights through rich visualizations on mobile devices with native apps
Simplified management of relational and non-relational data
Stretch Database technology keeps more of your customer’s historical data at your fingertips
Faster hybrid backups, high availability and disaster recovery scenarios to backup and restore your on-premises databases

The updated server will now, by default, encrypt all data and all queries. Malicious attackers will have no reason to break into the database because the encrypted data will appear as gibberish without the encryption key, according to Microsoft’s T.K. Ranga Rengarajan as reported in a TechWorld article.

Encryption and decryption of data happen transparently inside the application, which minimizes the changes that have to be made to existing applications.

Rengarajan said the difference with Microsoft’s solution is that the client application, not the database itself, encrypts and decrypts the information.

FierceCIO’s Paul Mah said the “Stretch Database” feature is also noteworthy. This allows extension of a database table into the Azure cloud platform. Mah said the ability to store warm and cold transaction data in Azure means you don’t have to worry about having to purchase extra storage space, or permanently erasing old or infrequently used data.

But Brent Ozar warned Microsoft better not just be moving the cold table partitions up into Azure storage. He said SQL Server 2016 has to deliver better partition elimination. Failure to do that will be bad as scanning partitions up into Azure will be even worse than scanning partitions locally.

Recent editions of SQL Server make increasing use of in-memory databases for performance. SQL Server 2014 introduced in-memory OLTP (online transaction processing), codenamed Hekaton, for databases that live in-memory with background persistence to disk. SQL Server 2016 lets you combine Hekaton with in-memory columnstore indexes. The idea is to deliver real-time operational analytics.

Last year Microsoft acquired Revolution Analytics. As part of that move into the data analytics and Hadoop ecosystem, SQL Server 2016 will include integration with the statistical programming language R for in-database analytics.

Do these sound like the biggest leap for SQL Server ever to you?

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