[Note from Pinal]: In this episode of the Notes from the Field series database expert Mike Lawell talks about his thoughts and observation about SQL Server 2016 and enhancements with AlwaysOn Availability Groups. When AlwaysOn was newly introduced, I was not able to catch up with the feature. I just thought it was just one of the subject which will not be developed by Microsoft, however, as the new versions of the SQL Server are now taking this feature to the next level, I am very delighted that I should have not worried at all. Let us see what Mike says in his own words about Enhancements with AlwaysOn Availability Groups.
SQL SERVER 2016 – Early Thoughts and Observations – Notes from the Field #120
[Note from Pinal]: In this episode of the Notes from the Field series database expert Mike Lawell explains about Live Query Statistics in SQL Server 2016. Statistics are heart of SQL Server. They play a very powerful role when SQL Server Engine needs help to build a new execution plan for a query. In earlier version of SQL Server we had the only privilege to see statistics after the query is executed. However, with the advancement of SQL Server 2016, the scenario has been changed. Here is a very interesting new feature of SQL Server 2016 which can help every performance tuning expert. Read the SQL Server 2016 – Early Thoughts and Observations of Mike in his own words.
SQL SERVER – Installing SQL Server Management Studio 2016 – Step by Step
New versions bring new learning. To keep myself up-to-date, I have downloaded RC0 (release candidate zero) for SQL Server 2016 and while installing SQL Server I was surprised to see the feature list. Installing these bits were something I was wanting to do as we are getting closer to the release date. But something got me by surprise though, check the screenshot shown below, there is no mention of SQL Server Management Studio 2016:
SQL SERVER – 2016 – Check Value as JSON With ISJSON()
I have been wanting to write about the various operators that govern to use JSON and my first shot has been with: SQL SERVER – Getting started and creating JSON using SQL Server 2016. That was like a primer and as I see the subsequent releases of SQL Server 2016 CTP’s, I see more capabilities have been added to this. One of the most important tasks to do is to access the value that is represented in a JSON document. In this blog, let me talk about one of the most important function that can be used to validate / address if the document entered in JSON or not with the help of ISJSON().
SQL SERVER 2016: Creating Simple Temporal Table
Temporal tables are a new feature that was introduced in SQL Server 2016. A temporal table gives application developers to view the state of data at a point in time. Temporal tables can also be used for logging purposes if required. I wanted to explore how this feature can be used. The documentation has been interesting and I went ahead in trying out how this can be enabled.
One of the most used use case for this feature would be to find the data values in a past date. This can now be easily configured in SQL Server 2016. Let us go ahead and create a database for use and then create a table with the Temporal history database created by default / automatically.
SQL SERVER 2016 – IF EXISTS Function on SQL Azure Databases and More
The experimentation of working with the next release of SQL Server is always fun and when I wrote the blog T-SQL Enhancement “Drop if Exists” clause, lesser did I know such capabilities are already existing with Azure SQL DB. When I was presenting at one of the local user groups, I told most of the capabilities come to Cloud first, get test and the very reason that it scales without problem on cloud gives one the confidence that it would work in our enterprise. One of the attendees asked, has all features first introduced to cloud only? Let us learn about IF EXISTS Function on SQL Azure Databases and More.
SQL Server 2016 – Enhancements with TempDB
SQL Server 2016 is loaded with tons of new enhancements that I can’t get enough of it. I have been playing around with the bits since multiple CTP’s and it is getting difficult to catch up on all the releases coming so fast and the number of enhancements from performance and scalability point of view have been too many to track. Let us see in this blog post Enhancements with TempDB in SQL Server 2016.