New Features Introduced In SharePoint 2016

Hi All,

This is my first article for SharePoint 2016. It seems to be very interesting, I can't wait until the release. I am following the Ignite Conference and various blogs and collecting all the details for SharePoint 16.

Until the time I found some (many more to come) of the new features that are declared in SP 16 as in the following:

1. SharePoint 2016 will be in public beta Q4 2015 with general availability Q2 2016.
   
2. SharePoint 2016 requires Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows Server 10 for the OS and SQL Server 2014 SP1 x64 or SQL Server vNext x64.
   
3. SharePoint 2016 no longer supports a standalone install using SQL Express, SQL Server must be installed on the box.
   
4. The roles are set up on the install using the configuration wizard, you can choose whether the server is a web front end, application server, search, distributed cache or a specialized role. The specialized role option enables you to determine the server role by starting / stopping the services running on the Farm (like in 2007, 2010 and 2013).
   
5. The upgrade path from a previous version is the database upgrade approach. If the SharePoint Farm is earlier than 2013 then the databases must be upgraded to SP 2013 before SP 2016. This means SP2016 will not support an upgrade from SP2010. An upgrade from SP2013 is the only option.
   
6. Patching of SharePoint 2016 has been greatly improved. There is now zero down time for a build to build patches with SharePoint 2016 since this an online process whereas before the process took services offline. The patches are also much smaller, with much less MSI and MSP files so the patching process is quicker. For more details see Paul's Project Server and and project Online Blog.
   
7. The software boundaries have not yet been confirmed but will be increased, the indicated boundaries are content DBs in the Terabytes, 100,000 site collections per content DB. The list threshold will be greater than 5000, the max file size has been increased to 10 GB and character limit restrictions have been removed and index items are increased to 500 million items.
   
8. There are improvements to the “Follow” functionality so that it works across on-premise and online.
   
9. A Hybrid deployment configuration is now possible via the UI rather than PowerShell.
   
10. FIM will not be included in a SharePoint 2016 UPS.
    
11. Unified index for SP Online and On Prem content brings your on-premises data with online content united in Delve.

References

New Features Coming in SharePoint 2016.
What's New for IT Professionals in SharePoint Server 2016.

The Script download for Microsoft Ignite Videos and slides are at: Download Script.

Office 2016 Public Preview now available: Office 2016 Public Preview now available.

I'll continue to update these. :) Enjoy SharePoint.