SQL Server is available, and supports both clustering and cloud computing to exceed the performance and reliability of any single platform. SQL Server is an indemand, capable database system.  SQL Server Express is quite usable for many of our classesAlthough Express has limitationon database size, computing capacity, and available features,the core SQL engine is the same as with other SQL Server versions, and it provides for an easier install and a lighter load on your computer. Microsoft has mostly maintained upward compatibility for SQL between SQL Server versions for many years, so if you have ready access to an older SQL Server installation, version 2008R2, 2012 or 2016, you will also be able to use it.

SQL Server Express is a freely-available small-brother version of Microsoft’s enterprise system, SQL Server. It is also a huge improvement over it, especially regarding the user interface design and the included feature-set. Its main features are:

• Database size limit of 4GB. This excludes logfiles and can be overridden by using multiple databases.
• Support for only one CPU (but multiple cores).
• No SQL Server Agent.

SQL Server Express offers a number of advantages. The first and arguably most important is the complete scalability and integration with SQL Server. This allows you to seamlessly upgrade your database as your needs also grow (remember SQL Server Express is limited to a database size of 4GB). In fact the database upgrade is so smooth that even with no prior experience it can be done in about 10 minutes for a 3GB database.

The SQL Server Express interface is much improved over its MSDE predecessor, and offers such GUI tools like the SQL Server Management Studio Express, the SQL Configuration Manager, the SQL Business Intelligence Development Studio and SQL Server Reporting Services.

SQL Server Express also has a strong family heritage. Being a Microsoft product, one can expect such features as excellent integration with Windows (for example domain authentication), support for dotNET, ODBC and XML, and comprehensive help and support from both the mother company and a large community of users on the web.

SQL Server Express is a bright report of primary relational database processing system (RDBMS), the SQL Server. Fundamentally, the SQL Server is a database management system that can be used to deposit and entry the mention stored in many vary databases. SQL Server comes in non-natural of delightful range of features besides matter insight, reporting, and in-depth campaigner analytics. The enterprise edition of SQL Server training competes nearby enterprise-oriented systems considering Oracle Database (DB) and MySQL. SQL Server Enterprise comes loaded later features and can be too costly for smaller sized companies to retain

Microsoft SQL Server 2016 is a relational database management system (DBMS) for Windows platforms that can be used for building, deploying and managing applications located on premises or in the cloud. The latest version, SQL Server 2016, was released in June 2016. It provides a bevy of and improved capabilities, including:

• A stretch database feature, which can be used to store some data on premises and send infrequently used data to Microsoft’s Azure cloud. Applications can access all data, regardless of where it’s stored.
• The Always Encrypted feature makes it possible to encrypt data at rest and in at the column level.
• Polybase, which integrates SQL Server with Hadoop’s Distributed File System and enables Hadoop data to be queried with SQL and joined with native relational data.
• In-database advanced analytics provides the capability to incorporate the R programming language into SQL Server applications by wrapping it in stored procedures.
• Dynamic data masking can be used to obfuscate data, protecting actual data values from unauthorized personnel for regulatory and compliance purposes.
• Support for temporal data enables automatic tracking of historical changes to data over time.

The latest version also provides a storage format, row-level security and Transact-SQL improvements for -optimized tables.

There are four main editions of SQL Server 2016 :

1. Enterpriseis for mission-critical applications, advanced analytics and data warehousing/business intelligence workloads. This edition is configured to provide high performance and availability for your most important applications. It supports an unlimited number of cores, and usage is constrained by only the operating system.
2. Standardis for core database capabilities, reporting and analytics. Compute capacity can’t exceed 24 cores; maximum usage is 128 GB per instance.
3. Developeris designed for application development purposes (as opposed to production database usage). Its core and support is the same as for the Enterprise edition.
4. Expressis a free edition geared primarily for learning and basic introductory usage. Express edition uses the same database engine and offers compatibility with the main SQL Server editions.

SQL Server Express is the most basic offering available. It is a full database engine you can deploy to a server or embed into an application. Express is free and comes with many of the same features as the enterprise edition. SQL Server Express is probably most suited to supporting production applications for smaller to midsize businesses. A typical SQL Server Express use case would be a deployment by developers who do not want to create applications with a database hosted on a server. Using Express, they would be able to develop apps with their SQL Server database.

SQL Server Express Benefits:

• Free:One huge advantage of SQL Server Express is that it is free. Your only expenditure is the time investment you make downloading and setting up the system. If you only want to learn how to use SQL Server, then Express is for you. There is nothing to lose by downloading the system and getting used to how it works.
• Scalability:SQL Server Express is an idyllic starting point for smaller independent software vendors (ISVs) since it can be used with any smaller application. The licensing allows Express to be included as part of an app or product. While there are limitations on memory and socket usage, they are not as restrictive as some might think. Express is not limited to a single user which is a commonly held misconception. There is a 10GB database restriction, but that is a maximum size per database meaning you can have multiple databases that store up to 10GB of data.
• Security:Within SQL Server Express there is the option of free online backup that will help to protect your valued business data if anything goes wrong. Administrators should still follow security best practices like limiting access to backup folders and following Windows password policies.
• Features:While Express is the “lite” version of SQL Server, there is still an impressive range of features that you would have to pay for with other systems. Express supports Full-Text Search, native XML, and the SQL Common Language Runtime. Other key features include a reporting component and report designer enabling custom report creation.

SQL Server Express Limitations:

• 1GB maximum memory used by the SQL Server Database Engine
• The maximum size of each relational database is 10GB
• SQL Agent is not included in Express. The SQL Agent is a background tool which enables administrators to automate tasks like backing up data, database replication setup, job scheduling, user permissions, and database monitoring.
• The limit on the buffer cache for each instance is 1MB of RAM.
• The relational database engine is restricted to the lesser of 1 socket or 4 cores.

Versions of SQL Server Express

SQL Server 2016 SP1 Express: This is the core express offering and comes with the features we have already laid out. In addition, capabilities like dynamic data masking and row-level security are now available in Express.

SQL Server 2016 Express with Advanced Services: This edition of Express contains the most features. Included are the relational database engine, Management Studio, reporting, and full-text search. Ideal for developers working on smaller applications which need to implement reporting on their applications.

SQL Server 2016 Express LocalDB: This edition is mainly used as a development tool. It is a lighter version of Express that runs as a local app. It does support all the main programmability features of the other editions. The big advantage of LocalDB for developers is that it allows them to create a local environment that is much easier to install and manage. Users can just start up an instance of LocalDB runtime as they need it and do not need to install a service.

Microsoft SQL Server 2016 licensing

• Online retailers, which offer full-packaged product licenses of SQL Server software;
• OEMs, which offer preinstalled licenses with their hardware systems; and
• Licensing solutions partners and enterprise software advisors, which offer SQL Server software through Microsoft Volume Licensing programs for end-customer organizations.

There are two main licensing options for SQL Server 2016:

• Server + CAL, which enables customers to license users and devices at a lower cost, adding to their SQL Server deployment as needed; or
• Per Core, which offers a more precise and consistent measure of computing power, regardless of whether SQL Server is deployed virtually, on physical servers, on premises or in the cloud.

A free, full-featured trial version of SQL Server 2016 is available for 180 days. Microsoft offers Premier Mission Critical Support for SQL Server 2016 that’s based on an organization’s specific usage and requirements.

Data types supported

In addition to the standard numeric, character and date/time data types supported by all relational DBMSes, Microsoft SQL Server 2016 supports money, XML and variable binary data types, as well as user-defined types. Support for system-versioned temporal data was added in the latest version.

Installation of SQL Server 2016 Express:

Steps to Accomplish

Downloading SQL Server Express
If running Windows Server 2012 or later, please perform the following steps:

1.Download and execute the Microsoft SQL Server 2016 SP2 Express installer from Microsoft’s website.
2.Choose the Custom option when prompted since SELECTserver utilizes features not enabled by default in the Basic installation.

3.The program will download the installer to the specified location.

Installing SQL Server Express
Once the installer appears, proceed through the following steps:

1.Choose the “New SQL Server stand-alone installation” option highlighted in the screenshot.

2.Accept the licensing terms, and click the Next button.

3.To obtain the latest updates from Microsoft, turn on Microsoft Update

4.If any updates are found, apply them.

5.Once any updates have been applied and potential problems have been investigated, click the Next button

6.On the following screen, click the Next button to proceed with default selections unless using alternate installation locations

7.In most cases, the default instance name will be sufficient. For additional clarity, the instance can optionally be named SELECTserver. Click the Next button to proceed

8.Default Service Account settings will be sufficient if SQL Server Express is being installed on the same machine where SELECTserver will reside. Click the Next button.

9.Choose the “Mixed Mode” radio button in the Authentication Mode section. Also enter a strong password containing uppercase and lowercase characters and either numbers or symbols. Click the Next button to continue. The installer will display an error if the password is not strong enough or if the two password fields do not match.

10.The installer may prompt for a restart of the machine if any files could not be updated immediately. If the below message appears, restart the server when possible following the installation.

11.An installation summary will appear once SQL Server 2016 Expresss has been installed. Click the Close button, and close the SQL Server Installation Center window.

The Express edition is a free version of SQL Server that is intended for small databases with a low number of users. In the 2016 version Express is limited to four cores, 1GB of ram per instance and a maximum database size of 10 GB. Although it is a reasonable size it is not large enough for most production database applications, but it is useful for development work if your development instance does not require many resources and is small, and if you are not developing any functionality that depends on Standard or Enterprise-only features..

Benefits of Express for development:
Performance problems will show up more conspicuously in development
There are no license complications for development work
It is suitable for both individual and shared development.
Network services can be configured just as with the full editions, so you can connect with tcp from remote machines and can be used by the SQL Browser service to allow connections using instance name
It can be freely downloaded and installed

Negatives of Express for development:
Does not include the full feature set of one of the production versions
Requires a full standard installation to create a new instance, this takes time to install and upgrade and quite a lot of disk space per instance
Should not be used for load or performance testing

SQL Server 2016 Express edition is the entry-level, free database and is ideal for learning and building desktop and small server data-driven applications. It is the best choice for independent software vendors, developers and hobbyists building client applications.

SQL Server Express LocalDB, a lightweight version of Express that has all of its programmability features, yet runs in user mode and has a fast, zero-configuration installation and a short list of prerequisites.

SQL Server 2016 Express edition is ideal for deploying small databases in production environments and makes leading innovation available to any public cloud like SQL Server 2016 Express edition on AWS marketplace  and Google Cloud ( GCP ).

Cognosys Provides Hardened images of SQL Server 2016 Express edition on the cloud (SQL Server 2016 Express edition AWS marketplace, SQL Server 2016 Express edition on Azure and SQL Server 2016 Express edition on Google Cloud Platform).

Deploy SQL Server 2016 Express edition  securely on cloud i.e. AWS marketplace, Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Click on the respective cloud provider tab for technical information.

Default password for sa is set as Passw@rd123 for SQL Server.
Please change the password after first login.

SQL Server 2016 Express on Windows Server 2016