Microsoft SQL Server utilizes two license types in regard to the SQL Server. There is standard licensing which licenses the entire server (regardless of cores). This method is typically cheaper upfront, however this model would require you to have CALs (client access licenses) for all users who utilize the server. Core licensing is like the name sounds, based around the number of physical cores the server has. Core license types typically cost more, but save you more money down the line since an unlimited number of users can access the server (CALs are not used for this type of license).





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Build intelligent, mission-critical applications using a scalable, hybrid database platform that has everything built in?from in-memory performance and advanced security to in-database analytics.

Microsoft SQL Server  - built to help you do more

Industry leading

Build mission-critical, intelligent apps for online transaction processing (OLTP) with breakthrough scalability, performance, and availability.

Advanced security

Protect data at rest and in motion. SQL Server is the least vulnerable database for six years running in the NIST vulnerabilities database.

End-to-end mobile BI

Transform data into actionable insights. Deliver insights on any device online or offline at one-fifth the cost of other self-service solutions.

In-database advanced analytics

Analyze data directly within the SQL Server database without moving the data using R, the popular statistics language.

Made for hybrid cloud

Get a consistent platform and tooling for easier workload mobility between your datacenter, private cloud, or Microsoft Azure.

Faster queries

When users want data, they want it as fast as you can give it to them. Microsoft SQL Server 2016 includes several options for enabling faster queries. Memory-optimized tables now support even faster online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads, with better throughput as a result of new parallelized operations.
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In-Memory OLTP enhancements
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In-Memory OLTP helps speed up transactional workloads with high concurrency and too many latches by moving data from disk-based tables to memory-optimized tables and by natively compiling stored procedures. In-memory OLTP can also help improve the performance of data warehouse staging by using nondurable, memory-optimized tables as staging tables.

In-memory analytics
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SQL Server 2016 adds more options for performing real-time analytics on rapidly changing inmemory data by adding support for column store indexes on memory-optimized OLTP tables. Resource contention between the two workloads is significantly reduced when they run simultaneously. As changes occur in a table, the database engine automatically manages changes to the index to ensure that it remains current with the underlying table.

Analysis Services enhancements


Analysis Services provides two different modes to support fast reporting and analytics: multidimensional and tabular. In SQL Server 2016, both multidimensional mode and tabular mode benefit from enhancements that improve performance. Direct Query now generates a simpler and better performing query in SQL Server 2016 than it did in earlier versions.

Better security

SQL Server 2016 introduces three new principal security features?Always Encrypted, Row-Level Security, and dynamic data masking. Because of innovative client-side encryption technology "Always Encrypted", the SQL Server instance never sees the unencrypted version of the data.
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Row-Level Security
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Row-Level Security (RLS) allows you to configure tables such that users see only the rows within the table to which you grant them access. This feature limits which rows are returned to the user, regardless of which application they are using, by automatically applying a predicate to the query.

Dynamic data masking
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When you have a database that contains sensitive data, you can use dynamic data masking to obfuscate a portion of the data unless you specifically authorize a user to view the unmasked data. Dynamic data masking is available for use in SQL Database.

Broader data access

As the cost to store data continues to drop and the number of data formats commonly used by applications continues to change, you need the ability both to manage access to historical data relationally and to seamlessly integrate relational data with semistructured and unstructured data. SQL Server 2016 includes several new features that support this evolving environment by providing access to a broader variety of data.
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Temporal data
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SQL Server 2016 now supports temporal tables, which were introduced as a new standard in ANSI SQL 2011. In addition, Transact-SQL has been extended to support the creation of temporal tables and the querying of these tables relative to a specific point in time.

JSON
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With the addition of JSON support to SQL Server 2016, you can now support both relational and nonrelational data structures in your environment and choose the appropriate model for your data requirements and workloads.

PolyBase
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In SQL Server 2016, you can now use PolyBase to query data in Hadoop or Azure Blob Storage and combine the results with relational data stored in SQL