SQL Server 2016 officially released, Oracle migration offer still available

Microsoft announced earlier today that their SQL Server 2016 product, which they are touting as the “world’s fastest and most price-performant database for HTAP (Hybrid Transactional and Analytical Processing) with updateable in-memory columnstores and advanced analytics through deep integration with R Services,” is now generally available.

SQL Server 2016 is a fully-featured data platform that is both faster and more secure than previous versions and is remarkably cheaper than using Oracle, a similar platform. According to Microsoft, using SQL Server 2016 costs one tenth of the price of using Oracle to run similar workloads.

Microsoft is attempting to lure developers away from Oracle and other non-Microsoft paid commercial RDBMS platform by promoting a special migration service supported by free SQL Server licenses. This service was first announced back in March and appears to be ongoing post-SQL Server 2016’s launch.

Those interested in experiencing a sample of SQL Server 2016 are encouraged to create a test environment using an Azure SQL VM but a full-featured version is available via the free developer edition. For more information on SQL Server 2016’s features, make sure to check out our summary here.