Top 5 excellent features in SQL Server 2016

SQL server 2016 provides several features that helps to increase the performance, security, simplify the maintenance and data transformation. 

1. Always encrypted

This feature helps to encrypt only specific columns instead of whole database. 
Data are encrypted always i.e both in rest and in motion. It helps to avoid man-in-middle attacks.
To use this feature , the connection string in the client application should include the attribute

Column Encryption Setting = enabled;

2. JSON Support

JSON stands for Java Script Object Notation.
SQL server has a built in JSON support which helps to parse relational data into JSON formatted data and also vice versa. 
To export relational data into JSON, simply include

 FOR JSON [ auto | path]

3. Dynamic data Masking

Helps to provide security to our data. We can choose,
1. default masking : For masking full data
2. partial masking : For masking part of the data
3. email masking : For retaining email format
4. random masking : For replacing numeric value with random value.

4. Polybase

It is introduced to bridge the gap between hadoop and SQL server.
To use this polybase architecture, java runtime environment is used.
It helps to fetch data from hadoop by using t-sql queries.

5. Row level security

It helps to filter specific rows from being viewed by normal users. 
It can be achieved by adding predicates to the security policy(its a inline function).
We can add more predicated to security policy, and the predicates can be set as on or off.