There is a lot to like in the new SQL Server 2016 that is nearing release, but a couple of really major, broad items are catching my eye, and they are things that can both help your installations and provide for better infrastructure going forward.
The first is encryption. Now that you’ll have the Always on Encryption feature to enable. With this new and essentially global protection added to SQL Server, information is going to be in a much safer state, much more readily. Where before the component parts of encryption were essentially separated, now the SQL Server engine will be making sure that the applications that have the keys to informaiton in the database are the one that are getting to read it.
There are some strong implications here when it comes to managing your servers, and it’s going to be important to understand recovery, key management and how the administration of encrypted information will be accomplished, but this is a huge step forward for information protection. As you may have seen before, we’ve been strong proponents of making sure your information is properly protected. With this new encryption infrastructure, this gets a good bit more straightforward.
The second is the Stretch Database capability. While at first blush this looks to be a way to marry SQL Server and Azure (and it certainly does that), the big take away for me is that you’ll have options now. Options that support unexpected growth or reporting requirements or processing or generally data warehouses. Sure, there are going to be infrastructure and design considerations and pros and cons of different approaches. But the fact is, being able to literally stretch your database out to the cloud is a great option and one that will save a lot of heartache, provide new options and more.
A few things to manage will include storage requirements and costs, performance, what to put where, how to control growth and respond to it when it happens, etc. But proper planning and management will make these issues something that can be addressed.
There are certainly other features. We’ll be looking at different options and features as we go forward. But these two are the ones that stand out to me at the very top of the heap.
What are your favorite features in the new release? What are your update plans?