Microsoft just release the first service pack for MS SQL Server, with some improvement as mention here

  • The following table compares the list of features which were only available in Enterprise edition which are now enabled in Standard, Web, Express, and LocalDB editions with SQL Server 2016 SP1. This consistent programmatically surface area allows developers and ISVs to develop and build applications leveraging the following features which can be deployed against any edition of SQL Server installed in the customer environment. The scale and high availability limits do not change, and remain as–is for lower editions as documented in this MSDN article.


    * Requires SQL Server agent which is not part of SQL Server Express Editions
    ** Requires creating filestream file groups which is not possible in Local DB due to insufficient permissions.

  • Database Cloning – Clone database is a new DBCC command added that allows DBAs and support teams to troubleshoot existing production databases by cloning the schema and metadata, statistics without the data. Cloned databases is not meant to be used in production environments. To see if a database has been generated from a call to clonedatabase you can use the following command, select DATABASEPROPERTYEX(‘clonedb’, ‘isClone’). The return value of 1 is true, and 0 is false. In SQL Server 2016 SP1, DBCC CLONEDATABASE added supports cloning of CLR, Filestream/Filetable, Hekaton and Query Store objects. DBCC CLONEDATABASE in SQL 2016 SP1 gives you the ability to generate query store only, statistics only, or pure schema only clone without statistics or query store. A CLONED database always contains the schema and the default clone also contains the statistics and query store data. For more information refer KB 3177838.

    DBCC CLONEDATABASE  (source_database_name, target_database_name)                         –– Default CLONE WITH SCHEMA, STATISTICS and QUERYSTORE metadata.
    DBCC CLONEDATABASE  (source_database_name, target_database_name)
    WITH NO_STATISTICS                                 –– SCHEMA AND QUERY STORE ONLY CLONE
    DBCC CLONEDATABASE  (source_database_name, target_database_name)
    WITH NO_QUERYSTORE                              –– SCHEMA AND STATISTICS ONLY CLONE
    DBCC CLONEDATABASE  (source_database_name, target_database_name)
    WITH NO_STATISTICS,NO_QUERYSTORE    –– SCHEMA ONLY CLONE

  • CREATE OR ALTER (Yes, we heard you !!!) – New CREATE OR ALTER support makes it easier to modify and deploy objects like Stored Procedures, Triggers, User–Defined Functions, and Views. This was one of the highly requested features by developers and SQL Community.

For quick, you can download the SP in the link below

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=54276