In addition to a consistent programmability experience across all editions.
SQL Server 2016 SP1 also introduces all the supportability and diagnostics improvements first introduced in SQL 2014 SP2, as well as new improvements and fixes centered around performance, supportability, programmability and diagnostics based on the learnings and feedback from customers and SQL community.
SQL Server 2016 SP1 also includes all the fixes up to SQL Server 2016 RTM CU3 including Security Update MS16–136.
SQL editions have traditionally been differentiated by features- this meant that essential features for day to day database use were not present in express or standard versions. Our view is that this is not desirable and that ther is core set of features needed in all editions, and that differentiation should be more about hardware size and resource supported.
Well Sql 2016 sp1 now brings us close to that wish so its a really big deal for the SMB and mid market customer.
Once you have an application using SQL Server 2016 Standard Edition, you can just do an Edition Upgrade to Enterprise Edition to get even more scalability and performance, and take advantage of the higher license limits in Enterprise Edition. You will also get the intrinsic performance benefits that are present in Enterprise Edition.
The table compares the list of features which were only available in Enterprise edition, which are now enabled in Standard, Web, Express, and LocalDB editions with SQL Server 2016 SP1. This consistent programmatically surface area allows developers and ISVs to develop and build applications leveraging the following features which can be deployed against any edition of SQL Server installed in the customer environmen
This is a bold move by Microsoft, and should increase Standard sales, and customer satisfaction, without cannibalizing Enterprise sales. Standard Edition customers can use these features both to consolidate their codebases and, in many scenarios, build solutions that offer better performance.
There are many of new features available across all editions of SP1.
There still differences in Enterprise:
Availability features like: online operations, piecemeal restore, and fully functional Availability Groups (e.g. read-only replicas) are still Enterprise only.
Performance features like parallelism still don’t work in Express Edition (or LocalDB).
Automatic indexed view usage without NOEXPAND hints, and high-end features like hot-add memory/CPU, will continue to be available only in Enterprise.
Operational features like: Resource Governor, Extensible Key Management (EKM), and Transparent Data Encryption will remain Enterprise Edition only.
Others, like Backup Encryption, Backup Compression, and Buffer Pool Extension, will continue to work in Standard, but will still not function in Express.
SQL Server Agent is still unavailable in Express and LocalDB. As a result, , Change Data Capture will not work. Cross-server Service Broker also remains unavailable in these editions.
In-Memory OLTP and PolyBase are supported in Express, but ere unavailable in LocalDB.
Virtualization Rights haven’t changed and are still much more valuable in Enterprise Edition with Software Assurance.
Resource limits on the lower level editions remain the same. The upper memory limit in Standard Edition, is still 128 GB (while Enterprise Edition is now 24 TB).
I feel that Standard Edition is expensive enough that its memory limits should never be so dangerously close to the upper bound of a well-equipped laptop and maybe we should expect the limit to increase at least with each new version. If you when you are on Standard Edition and scale is required, then you can now use many Enterprise features across multiple Standard Edition boxes or instances, instead of trying to scale up.
All the newly introduced Trace flags with SQL Server 2016 SP1 are documented and can be found at http://aka.ms/traceflags.
SP1 contains a roll-up of solutions provided in SQL Server 2016 cumulative updates up to and including the latest Cumulative Update – CU3 and Security Update MS16–136 released on November 8th, 2016. Therefore, there is no reason to wait for SP1 CU1 to ‘catch–up‘ with SQL Server 2016 CU3 content.
The SQL Server 2016 SP1 installation may require reboot post installation
