Developers Conference 2016 – SQL Server
Last week end, I had the opportunity to present at the Developers Conference in Mauritius again. This was another opportunity to team up with my friends from the MSPs and showcase how SQL Server 2016 can help solve the data challenges in modern businesses . So, if you missed the presentation, here is a summary of what we demonstrated.
I started the presentation with a focus on the trends in technology in terms of Apps, Mobile and IoT and how all of them are creating more and more data. However, this is leading to new challenges in terms of processing and storage.
Despite these challenges, there is an increase need for data analytics by the business to find quick insights and enhance decision making. How to solve these issues? This is where SQL Server 2016 comes into play.
1. In-Memory
Dishay explained how the in-memory features of SQL Server 2016 works, what has changed since 2014 and he also made a live demo of the performance improvements with memory optimized tables versus normal tables. More information of how to implement in-memory is available here.
2. Polybase
Next, I demonstrated the power of Polybase, also a new feature of SQL Server 2016 which allows the user to join unstructured data from an existing Hadoop cluster to a relational data in SQL Server. This allows T-SQL developers to do Big Data Analytics with there existing knowledge without learning about all the Hadoop mechanisms.
You can read more abut Polybase on my blog post here.
You can read more abut Polybase on my blog post here.
3. Stretch Database
Then, Prashant made a demo of the new Stretch Database in SQL Server 2016 where he migrated data to the cloud and queried them without any special code, thus making it transparent to the user.
With Stretch Database, you can configure automatic remote archiving, for example, migrate data older than 5 years automatically to the cloud. Therefore, one table can be partly on premise and partly on the cloud and it can be queried seamlessly.
You can read more about Stretch DB on my blog post here.
4. Security Improvements in SQL Server 2016
At last but not least, Muzammil made a live demo of the new security features available in SQL Server 2016 which is important before scaling to the cloud, such as, Always Encrypted, Row Level Security and Dynamic Data Masking. You can read more about the security features here.
I then concluded by summarizing the features we demoed and how they are solving our daily problems in the data world.
