Book Image

SQL Server 2016 Developer's Guide

By : Miloš Radivojević, Dejan Sarka, William Durkin
Book Image

SQL Server 2016 Developer's Guide

By: Miloš Radivojević, Dejan Sarka, William Durkin

Overview of this book

Microsoft SQL Server 2016 is considered the biggest leap in the data platform history of the Microsoft, in the ongoing era of Big Data and data science. This book introduces you to the new features of SQL Server 2016 that will open a completely new set of possibilities for you as a developer. It prepares you for the more advanced topics by starting with a quick introduction to SQL Server 2016's new features and a recapitulation of the possibilities you may have already explored with previous versions of SQL Server. The next part introduces you to small delights in the Transact-SQL language and then switches to a completely new technology inside SQL Server - JSON support. We also take a look at the Stretch database, security enhancements, and temporal tables. The last chapters concentrate on implementing advanced topics, including Query Store, column store indexes, and In-Memory OLTP. You will finally be introduced to R and learn how to use the R language with Transact-SQL for data exploration and analysis. By the end of this book, you will have the required information to design efficient, high-performance database applications without any hassle.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
SQL Server 2016 Developer's Guide
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
12
In-Memory OLTP Improvements in SQL Server 2016

System-versioned tables in SQL Server 2016


SQL Server 2016 introduces support for system-versioned temporal tables. Unfortunately, application-time tables are not implemented in this version. System-versioned temporal tables bring built-in support for providing information about data stored in the table at any point in time rather than only the data that is correct at the current moment in time. They are implemented according to the specification in the ANSI SQL 2011 standard with a few extensions.

How temporal tables work in SQL Server 2016

A system-versioned temporal table is implemented in SQL Server 2016 as a pair of tables: the current table containing the actual data, and the history table where only historical entries are stored. There are many limitations of both current and history tables. Here are limitations and considerations that you must take into account for the current table of a system-versioned temporal table:

  • It must have a primary key defined

  • It must have one PERIOD FOR SYSTEM_TIME...