Whats New in SQL Server 2016 Database Engine

Whats New in 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.
Dynamic Data Masking: If specified in the table definition, masked data is hidden from most users, and only users with UNMASK permission can see the complete data.
Row Level Security: Data access can be restricted at the database engine level, so users see only what is relevant to them.