Jump start your SQL Server 2016 Exploration journey here.

 Review the following before reading this post:

http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2016/05/watch-out-sql-server-2016-general.html
http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2016/05/download-sql-server-management-studio.html 
http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2016/05/stretch-database-is-nice-feature-of-sql.html


Download the SQL Server 2012 Developer Edition from Microsoft Site.

Mount the .ISO file as described here.


Double click the executable file in the mounted drive.

Agree to updating computer information

SQL Server Installation center is displayed.

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Click System Configuration checker.
Rules get checked as shown.

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Click OK

Click hardware and software requirements. You are taken to Microsoft site to review details.
Details here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143506(v=sql.130).aspx#top_principal
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You can access a virtual machine on which SQL Server 2016 is already installed, if you have an Azure account for evaluation.

• Needs .NET Framework 4.6.1 and will be installed during SQL Server 2016 installation.

Hardware requirements as shown here:

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• You need 1GB except for Express which needs only 512MB. Recommended is 4GB

• x64 Processor, 1.4 GHZ recommended 2.0 GHZ or higher

• No x86 bit server

• No WOW support either

• Management tools OK on WOW

Two types of editions:

Principal Editions--Enterprise, Standard and Web
Breadth Editions--Developer and Express

For Windows 10, the type can be either Standard in Principal
or Developer and Express in Breadth editions

Click on Installation in SQL Server Installation Center to display Installation details

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Click on the first option, New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation.

The Product Key page is displayed. For developer edition no product key is required.

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Click Next to open the License Terms page as shown.

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Accept License terms and click Next.

Checks Global rules and takes you to product update page as shown
KB3164398---https://support.microsoft.com/en-us

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Click Next.

Install Setup Files page is displayed as shown.--this takes a while!

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Click OK to Rules Check Result Message. Click Next

Features Selection page is displayed. Make selections

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After the 'Please Wait..' window the Instance Configuration window is displayed as shown.

Herein a named instance will be installed.

Installing a named instance called OHANA as shown

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Click Next.                         --after the 'Please Wait..' window


Polybase Configuration page is displayed as shown.

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Click Next. The Server Configuration page is displayed. The various service accounts needs to be set. In what follows, in this installation, the current computer user takes on all the accounts with his Windows password. This is just to keep it simple. In an enterprise, this way of handling must be avoided.

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Regarding initialization look here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ms175935(v=sql.130).aspx
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In the next couple of interactive windows the Service's Account Name will be changed to reflect the current user assuming them.

Click inside the Account Name window of the SQL Server Agent to bring up the drop-down menu.

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Click Browse...to display the Select User or Group window.

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Click Advanced... button.

Select User or Group (adv) page is displayed.

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Click Find Now button. The Search results pane gets populated with all relevant account information.

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Choose the Current User of computer by highlighting it and Click OK. The current user gets selected.

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Click OK. Current user account name is inserted for the SQL Server Agent's Account Name a shown.

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Do the same for the other services. Actually after doing for the SQL Server Agent you can copy the Account Name and paste in the other services. Enter password for each service, the same Windows password.

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Oops! there was a typo in the Reporting Services password field.

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Error in password for Reporting Services Corrected. Click Next.
Database Engine Configuration page is displayed.

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Click Add Current User on the Server Configuration tabbed pane as shown. The current user's user name gets added to the Specify SQL Server administrators'' pane

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Click Data Directories tab. In Data Directories accept default.

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Click TempDB tab. Note the file names and other details. Just accept the defaults.

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Click File Stream tab. Click all check boxes.

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Click Next.

Analysis Services Configuration mode is displayed
Default is Multidimensional and data mining mode. You can choose only a single server mode.
Accept default.

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Click Add Current User. Current User will be added as an administrator.

Click Data Directories tab.

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Make no changes and click Next.

Reporting Services Configuration page is displayed as shown.

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Accept default and click Next.

The Consent to install Microsoft R Open page is displayed.

Install_018                          --Please Wait window is displaeyd.
Click Next.
Feature configuration check is made and the Ready to Install page is displayed.

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Click Install. The installation took slightly less than hour. This is the fastest ever for SQL Server in all these years.

The computer was not restarted but only the above message window clicked OK.

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That's all.

Start working with SQL Server 2016 Developer free edition

In my previous post, I had mentioned that SQL Server 2016 Developer will be available at the end of year. However, SQL Server Developer 2016 is available at this site here beginning 5/31/2016 .

You can download x64 bit version for English language here;
https://myprodscussu1.app.vssubscriptions.visualstudio.com/Downloads?PId=2057

 Here is a picture of the download site page:

It is possible for me to download as I have a couple of Microsoft Products already for which I have subscribed like, Office 365 and Microsoft Azure. I have registered for many other Microsoft Products over the years.

This is the file you would be downloading:

It is 2 GB and it can take quite sometime to download to your computer.

I also heard that MSDN subscribers can get immediate access to new Microsoft Products which are free.

In any case you would like to download, access the link at the top.

Even if you do not download you can still train in SQL Server 2016 here at the Microsoft Virtual Labs for free.

Here are step-by-step instructions to install SQL Server 2016 Developer on a Windows 10 machine.

SQL Server 2016 is going GA on June 1, 2016

Get ready to test out the database server deemed to be the ground-breaking version with numerous new features. It will be available in the near future. Get the free Developer's edition.

In Microsoft's own language,

"SQL Server 2016 seamlessly manages both relational and beyond relational (JSON, XML, Hadoop) data, seamlessly integrates structured data with Hadoop data, and seamlessly integrates on-premises data with cloud data"

It has best of both worlds, "relational and beyond relational).

SQL Server is ideally suited for:

•     Mission critical intelligent applications delivering real-time operational intelligence by combining built-in advanced analytics and in-memory technology without having to move the data or impact end user performance. 
•  Enterprise scale data warehousing with enhanced in-memory columnstore that increases query performance by over 100x vs disk based solutions. With SQL Server 2016, you can also access optimized MPP scale out software that can be combined with scale out appliance architecture with our Analytics Platform System (APS).
• Applications requiring the highest levels of security with new Always Encrypted technology that protects your data at rest and in motion without impacting database performance. 
• Comprehensive business intelligence solutions on mobile devices with an end-to-end mobile BI solution built-in that can deliver insights on any device. You can also manage all of your KPIs, mobile reports and traditional reports from a modern web portal. 
• New big data solutions that require combining relational data with non-relational data with PolyBase technology built-in that allows you to query structured and unstructured data with the simplicity of T-SQL. 
• Hybrid cloud solutions that can reduce storage costs, improve high availability and simplify IT operations with new Stretch Database technology. This keeps more of your historical data at your fingertips by transparently and securely stretching warm and cold OLTP data to Microsoft Azure on-demand without application changes. In addition, faster replicas can be placed in Azure to give you cost effective disaster recovery and backups.

Read this original article from Microsoft blog at MSDN.
Source and italicized test taken from the above article.

Get your free copy of SQL Server 2012 Developer edition and install it. Here are the screen shots of installation on a Windows 10 computer.

Must see video for SQL Developers

SQL Server 2016 is advertised to be the most significant SQL Server in recent times and has a plethora of new ideas and concepts. This presentation (over an hour long) really provides a great background for SQL Server 2016 which is in RC3 presently but appears to be on Azure (preview?) already.

This is a video that you must see if you are a SQL Database Developer. The presentation (nearly an hour, March 30, 2016 Build event) by Lindsey Allen and Tony Petrossian is really informative, helpful and well made.

The stated overview of the presentation was:
"Microsoft offers SQL Server and Azure SQL Database to help you develop great relational database applications. In this session you will learn about the top developer features coming in SQL Server 2016 which are already in Azure SQL Database. Additionally, you will see the latest investments in Azure SQL Database that enable you to easily manage thousands of databases and get the performance and security insight needed to build robust and secure applications in the cloud.
"
You can hear the full presentation with all the demos here:
(Day 1 of the Microsoft Build meeting. Lindsey Allen and Tony Petrossian March 30, 2016)

The following demos were presented to deliver the 'wow' impact (it is possible that I might have omitted some).

• In-memory OLTP Demo nicely presented.
• Always encrypted demo(Security schema, security policy  etc)
• Dynamic data matching
• SQL Injection/Auditing
• Demo with Python script
• Demo with Ruby

The video presentation is copied over here as well:



However, if you are short on time and just would like to glance over the slides they used, you may review the following images captured from the video as screen shots.

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 Comparison