Recently a preview – SQL Server 2016 has been released.  A lot of great features have been announced, but not all of them are included in the preview.  It is releasing in next year so many more things might still be announced and some of the capabilities might change. While its existing servers will continue to run SQL Server 2012 and 2014, the servers for the new platform are going directly to SQL Server 2016 when it officially releases in October. Let’s walk around some exciting features:

• New features of SQL Server 2016 include Stretch Database, which described as enabling “an infinite database where you can take even a single table of SQL Server 2016 in your database and stretch it to Azure.” In other words, a SQL Server 2016 database can start on-premises and be moved partly into the Microsoft Azure cloud without affecting applications or queries.
• To help customers with data security and compliance when using SQL Server on-premises or in the cloud, SQL introducing Always Encrypted. Always Encrypted, based on technology from Microsoft Research, protects data at rest and in motion. With Always Encrypted, SQL Server can perform operations on encrypted data and best of all; the encryption key resides with the application in the customers trusted environment.
• Building on our industry leading and proven in-memory technologies, customers will benefit from the combination of real-time operational analytics with blazing fast transactional performance – a first among enterprise vendors. For In-Memory OLTP, which customers today are using for up to 30x faster transactions than disk based systems, you will now be able to apply this technology tuned for transactional performance to a significantly greater number of applications as well as benefit from increased concurrency.

In addition, there are many more capabilities & features coming with SQL Server 2016 that deliver mission critical performance, deeper insights on your data and allow you to reap the benefits of hyper-scale cloud.