--- title: Updated - SQL Server docs | Microsoft Docs description: Display snippets of updated content for recently changed in documentation, for SQL Server. services: na documentationcenter: '' author: MightyPen manager: jhubbard editor: BYHAM ms.service: na ms.topic: updart-autogen ms.technology: database-engine ms.custom: UpdArt.exe ms.workload: sql-server ms.tgt_pltfrm: na ms.devlang: na ms.topic: updart-autogen ms.date: 09/11/2017 ms.author: genemi --- # New and Recently Updated: SQL Server docs Nearly every day Microsoft updates some of its existing articles on its [Docs.Microsoft.com](http://docs.microsoft.com/) documentation website. This article displays excerpts from recently updated articles. Links to new articles might also be listed. This article is generated by a program that is rerun periodically. Occasionally an excerpt can appear with imperfect formatting, or as markdown from the source article. Images are never displayed here. Recent updates are reported for the following date range and subject: - *Date range of updates:*   **2017-07-18**   -to-   **2017-09-11** - *Subject area:*   **SQL Server**.   ## New Articles Created Recently The following links jump to new articles that have been added recently. 1. [SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2 Release Notes](sql-server-2008-r2-sp2-release-notes.md) 2. [SQL Server 2012 Release Notes](sql-server-2012-release-notes.md) 3. [SQL Server 2012 SP1 Release Notes](sql-server-2012-sp1-release-notes.md) 4. [SQL Server 2012 SP2 Release Notes](sql-server-2012-sp2-release-notes.md) 5. [SQL Server 2012 SP3 Release Notes](sql-server-2012-sp3-release-notes.md) 6. [SQL Server 2014 Release Notes](sql-server-2014-release-notes.md) 7. [Help Viewer and Offline Content for SQL Server](sql-server-help-installation.md)   ## Updated Articles with Excerpts This section displays the excerpts of updates gathered from articles that have recently experienced a large update. The excerpts displayed here appear separated from their proper semantic context. Also, sometimes an excerpt is separated from important markdown syntax that surrounds it in the actual article. Therefore these excerpts are for general guidance only. The excerpts only enable you to know whether your interests warrant taking the time to click and visit the actual article. For these and other reasons, do not copy code from these excerpts, and do not take as exact truth any text excerpt. Instead, visit the actual article.   ## Compact List of Articles Updated Recently This compact list provides links to all the updated articles that are listed in the Excerpts section. 1. [What's new in SQL Server 2016](#TitleNum_1)     ### 1.   [What's new in SQL Server 2016](what-s-new-in-sql-server-2016.md) *Updated: 2017-09-08*             - Download the **free** [**SQL Server 2016 Developer edition!**](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/sql-server-editions-developers). - Download the latest version of [SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)](https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/mt238290.aspx). - Have an Azure account? Spin up a [Virtual Machine with SQL Server 2016 already installed](https://azure.microsoft.com/marketplace/partners/microsoft/sqlserver2016sp1standardwindowsserver2016/). **SQL Server 2016 Database Engine** - You can now configure **multiple tempDB** database files during SQL Server installation and setup. - New **Query Store** stores query texts, execution plans, and performance metrics within the database, allowing easy monitoring and troubleshooting of performance issues. A dashboard shows which queries consumed the most time, memory or CPU resources. - **Temporal tables** are history tables which record all data changes, complete with the date and time they occurred. - New built-in **JSON support** in SQL Server supports JSON imports, exports, parsing and storing. - New **PolyBase** query engine integrates SQL Server with external data in Hadoop or Azure Blob storage. You can import and export data as well as executing queries. - The new **Stretch Database** feature lets you dynamically, securely archive data from a local SQL Server database to an Azure SQL database in the cloud. SQL Server automatically queries both local and remote data in the linked databases. - **In-memory OLTP:** - Now supports FOREIGN KEY, UNIQUE and CHECK constraints, and native compiled stored procedures OR, NOT, SELECT DISTINCT, OUTER JOIN, and subqueries in SELECT. - Supports tables up to 2TB (up from 256GB). - Has column store index enhancements for sorting and Always On Availability Group support. - New security features: - **Always Encrypted:** When enabled, only the application that has the encryption key can access the encrypted sensitive data in the SQL Server 2016 database. The key is never passed to SQL Server. ## Similar Articles This section lists very similar articles for recently updated articles in other subject areas, within our public GitHub.com repository: [MicrosoftDocs/sql-docs](https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/sql-docs/). #### Subject areas which do have new or recently updated articles - [New + Updated (3+12) : **Advanced Analytics for SQL** docs](../advanced-analytics/new-updated-advanced-analytics.md) - [New + Updated (5+0) : **Connect to SQL** docs](../connect/new-updated-connect.md) - [New + Updated (5+1) : **Database Engine for SQL** docs](../database-engine/new-updated-database-engine.md) - [New + Updated (19+82): **Integration Services for SQL** docs](../integration-services/new-updated-integration-services.md) - [New + Updated (1+8) : **Linux for SQL** docs](../linux/new-updated-linux.md) - [New + Updated (12+1) : **Relational Databases for SQL** docs](../relational-databases/new-updated-relational-databases.md) - [New + Updated (0+1) : **Reporting Services for SQL** docs](../reporting-services/new-updated-reporting-services.md) - [New + Updated (7+1) : **Microsoft SQL Server** docs](../sql-server/new-updated-sql-server.md) - [New + Updated (1+1) : **SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT)** docs](../ssdt/new-updated-ssdt.md) - [New + Updated (0+2) : **SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA)** docs](../ssma/new-updated-ssma.md) - [New + Updated (1+4) : **SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)** docs](../ssms/new-updated-ssms.md) - [New + Updated (4+1) : **Transact-SQL** docs](../t-sql/new-updated-t-sql.md) - [New + Updated (0+1) : **Tools for SQL** docs](../tools/new-updated-tools.md) #### Subject areas which have no new or recently updated articles - [New + Updated (0+0): **ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) for SQL** docs](../ado/new-updated-ado.md) - [New + Updated (0+0): **Analysis Services for SQL** docs](../analysis-services/new-updated-analysis-services.md) - [New + Updated (0+0): **Data Quality Services for SQL** docs](../data-quality-services/new-updated-data-quality-services.md) - [New + Updated (0+0): **Data Mining Extensions (DMX) for SQL** docs](../dmx/new-updated-dmx.md) - [New + Updated (0+0): **Master Data Services (MDS) for SQL** docs](../master-data-services/new-updated-master-data-services.md) - [New + Updated (0+0): **Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) for SQL** docs](../mdx/new-updated-mdx.md) - [New + Updated (0+0): **ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) for SQL** docs](../odbc/new-updated-odbc.md) - [New + Updated (0+0): **PowerShell for SQL** docs](../powershell/new-updated-powershell.md) - [New + Updated (0+0): **Samples for SQL** docs](../sample/new-updated-sample.md) - [New + Updated (0+0): **XQuery for SQL** docs](../xquery/new-updated-xquery.md)