Service Pack 1 closes the gap between MSSQL Server Standard and Enterprise

Service Pack 1 was recently released for MSSQL Server 2016. This seems a bit early for a version released less than half a year ago, but Microsoft has a reason for this.

Service Pack 1 closes the gap between Standard and Enterprise

Service Pack 1 was recently released for MSSQL Server 2016. This seems a bit early for a version released less than half a year ago, but Microsoft has a reason for this:

“With the arrival of MSSQL 2016 Service Pack 1, almost all Enterprise features that you can apply to a database are also available in the Standard edition”

This means that the difference between Enterprise and Standard has been given a different meaning. With the arrival of this Service Pack 1, a large number of options are possible, which previously required an expensive license. You can think of:

• Snapshots on your database. Ideal for when you want to fill a data warehouse.
• Compression of your database. This reduces your database considerably in size. An additional advantage: the disk load also decreases. This option is completely transparent to the application using the database.

If you develop applications yourself, there are even more options, such as:

• Partitioning tables. This is especially interesting if there is a large database with a lot of historical data
• Extensive security options such as row-level security (you may or may not see data depending on your position) or dynamic data masking (shielding sensitive data depending on your position)
• In-Memory Tables
• Additions and extensions to T-SQL syntax

When do I still need an Enterprise edition?

Enterprise is now a term for “large environments”. That is, Enterprise is now recommended if you need more than 128GB of memory for the MSSQL server, or if you need an advanced high-availability solution. Furthermore, certain processes in Enterprise edition can be executed in parallel, while in Standard these operations are executed serially.

Also, the restrictions on the number of processors for Standard have not changed. 16 logical processors (or 4 physical) is still the limit, but this restriction will be less of an issue.

For difference in the editions, please refer to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2016?redirectedfrom=MSDN&view=sql- server-ver15 .

Can I downgrade my (older) Enterprise Edition to the Standard Edition?

Suppose I now use MSSQL 2008 Enterprise and I want to go to MSSQL 2016 Standard, is this possible?
That depends on whether features are used that are only available as an Enterprise feature in 2016. If this is not the case, a downgrade is possible. Otherwise, a choice must be made whether the feature used will no longer be used.

Another point of attention is the available hardware; if more than 128GB is in use, this ‘extra’ memory can no longer be used in the standard edition.

I want to upgrade my environment to 2016, how do I do that?

A number of things are important for the upgrade to a higher MSSQL version, the most important question being whether your application supplier supports MSSQL 2016.

If this is the case, or if you are able to adapt the code so that your application works with MSSQL 2016, please contact us. Our consultants have extensive experience with migration processes and know all the points of attention involved.