Configuring multiple tempdb files is not a new feature in SQL Server and has been a best practice for sometime to help ease and prevent tempdb contention which helps to increase the scalability of your SQL Server installation. Before SQL Server 2016, this was a task which needed to be carried out after the installation but one of the new features of SQL Server 2016 is the … [Read more...] about SQL Server 2016 New Features – Multiple TempDB Files Configured at Server Install
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SQL Server 2016 New Features – Dynamic Data Masking
Data security is always a hot subject and anything that database software vendors can do to enhance the security of data is usually welcome. One of the new features of SQL Server 2016 is the introduction of Dynamic Data Masking. As it says on the tin, the data is masked which prevents non-privileged users from seeing it. With Dynamic Data Masking in SQL Server 2016, … [Read more...] about SQL Server 2016 New Features – Dynamic Data Masking
SQL Server 2016 New Features – Live Query Statistics
SQL Server 2016 Live Query Statistics provide a way to look into the execution plan to see what parts of the query are currently running. The advantage of this feature is that for a slow query, instead of having to wait for it to complete before the execution plan is available, it's now possible to view the execution plan in real time. Sometimes execution plans can be … [Read more...] about SQL Server 2016 New Features – Live Query Statistics
SQL Server 2016 New Features – Query Store
In this series of posts covering the new features in SQL Server 2016, I'm moving on to looking at the Query Store. This tool provides a way to track query execution plan performance over time to help assist troubleshooting efforts. Figuring out why the database has suddenly started running slowly can be at times difficult to diagnose quickly. The query store is an extra tool … [Read more...] about SQL Server 2016 New Features – Query Store
SQL Server 2016 New Features – Always Encrypted
In my previous post, I listed a number of the SQL Server 2016 new features. Let's look at the first one in that list - Always Encrypted. With Always Encrypted the key to unlocking the encryption resides with the application. The encyption key is never passed to SQL Server. God like administrators cannot view the data on the server in its unencrypted form. This provides a … [Read more...] about SQL Server 2016 New Features – Always Encrypted