The latest version of Microsoft’s SQL Server 2016 database management software will be generally available on 1 June.
The new edition of the software will deliver a significant new features previously unavailable in older versions.
One of its new features, Always Encrypted, is a new security capability designed to protect data at rest and in motion without affecting database performance.
Another is Stretch Database technology, which stretches OLTP data to Microsoft Azure on-demand without application changes, allowing users to have better access to their historical data. It also intends to cut storage costs and simplify IT operations.
SQL Server 2016 is well suited for mission critical intelligent applications, enterprise scale data warehousing, business intelligence solutions on mobile devices, new big data solutions that need combining relational data with non-relational data with built-in PolyBase technology.
In a blogpost announcing the release, Microsoft said SQL Server 2016 will allow organisations to build mission-critical, and business critical intelligent applications with the most secure database, the highest performance data warehouse, end-to-end mobile business intelligence on any device, in-database advanced analytics, in-memory capabilities optimised for all workloads.
The company noted that its new database software manages both relational and beyond relational (JSON, XML, Hadoop) data, integrates structured data with Hadoop data, and on-premises data with cloud data.
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The company said by upgrading to SQL Server 2016, users can expect up to 7x faster throughput, 34x faster queries and 3.6x faster reporting.
It scales up to 12 TB of memory and 640 logical processors with Windows Server 2016. SQL Server 2016 allows users to run real-time operational analytics over transactional data and balance loads across readable secondaries in Always On availability groups.
SQL Server 2016, which was initially announced last year, has gone through the standard beta process. It will be offered in Enterprise, Standard, Express, and Developer editions.
The Express and Developer editions will be available as a free download, making the capabilities of SQL Server 2016 broadly available to developers.
DocuSign has already selected SQL Server for its platform due to the software’s performance and ability to handle all types of data.
DocuSign chief architect and vice president of platform engineering Eric Fleischman said: "With the largest banks, insurers and other financial institutions counting on us we need to deliver secure software for our environment. New features in SQL Server 2016 like Always Encrypted allow us to deliver on this promise."
