performance: SQL Server 2016 SP1 @ Connect 2016

Now high-performance features are included in all editions, including free Express edition!

SQL Server 2016 Service Pack 1 generally available | SQL Server Blog


SQL Server 2016 SP1 brings new innovation opportunities to software partners | SQL Server Blog

SQL Server 2016 posts world record TPC-H 10 TB benchmark | SQL Server Blog
"Customers can also gain tremendous performance improvement by simply upgrading to SQL Server 2016 without application changes (e.g. queries will run up to 34x faster)"

SQL Server TPC benchmark results | Microsoft

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Connect/2016/

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Connect/2016/Keynotes-Scott-Guthrie-and-Scott-Hanselman

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Connect/2016/Scott-Guthrie-Unplugged
"Average CPU utilization on Enterprise servers: 8%"

.NET Core 1.1 RTM

Announcing .NET Core 1.1 | .NET Blog

• ".NET Core: Add distros and improve performance.
• ASP.NET Core: Improve Kestrel, Azure support and productivity.
• EF Core: Azure and SQL 2016 support."

News flash: ASP.NET Core 1.1 with Kestrel was ranked as the fastest mainstream fullstack web framework in the TechEmpower plaintext benchmark.

"The degree of improvement is absolutely astonishing, going from 2,120 requests per second on Mono in Round 11 to 1,822,366 requests per second on ASP.NET Core in Round 13."

.NET Core downloads

Announcing the Fastest ASP.NET Yet, ASP.NET Core 1.1 RTM | .NET Web Development and Tools Blog

Azure Key Vault

Security "bootstrapping" requires a reliable starting point.
When we "hide" one key by another key, the security is shifted to that second key.
Question is how to make the "base" key very secure?

In case of Azure Key Vault this is based on hardware encryption,
and then is leveraging PKI and Azure AD to propagate "secrets" to authorized Apps.

Key Vault Documentation | Microsoft Docs

What is Azure Key Vault? | Microsoft Docs
"Azure Key Vault helps safeguard cryptographic keys and secrets used by cloud applications and services. By using Key Vault, you can encrypt keys and secrets (such as authentication keys, storage account keys, data encryption keys, .PFX files, and passwords) by using keys that are protected by hardware security modules (HSMs). For added assurance, you can import or generate keys in HSMs. If you choose to do this, Microsoft processes your keys in FIPS 140-2 Level 2 validated HSMs (hardware and firmware)."

Azure Podcast: Episode 153 - Key Vault

The Official Azure Key Vault Team Blog – Your official source for all the latest news and tech tips for Microsoft Azure Key Vault and enlightened workloads.

Msdn forums - Azure Key Vault