Microsoft’s SQL Server 2016 CTP 2.3 now available to download

Microsoft has announced today that SQL Server 2016 CTP 2.3 (Community Technical Preview) is now available for download. While Microsoft does call this build a preview, they did say that they have already deployed the build into production in the SQL Azure database.

The company says that this release is part of their new rapid preview model and that they made enhancements to several features which are listed below:

• Row Level Security support for in-memory OLTP tables
• A core engine scalability improvement, dynamically partitioning thread safe memory objects by NUMA or CPU, which enables higher scalability
• In-memory data warehouse (column tore) performance optimizations
• Many-to-many derived hierarchies in Master Data Services
• Several performance improvements to SQL Server Analysis Services, including DAX query performance
• Enhancements to Reporting Services, including an updated Report Builder with a modern theme and report rendering for modern browsers

In addition, this release also has improvements to SQL Server Integration Service, Query Execution, and DBCC CHECKDB.

SQL Server 2016 offers a rich set of improvements over prior versions including real-time operational analytics, improved visualizations on mobile devices, advanced analytics, and improved security technology.

The preview is available now and you can download it from the link below.

Download: SQL Server 2016 Community Technology Preview 2.3