On July 25th Microsoft released the first cumulative update (#1) for SQL Server 2016. This is a good reason to celebrate. Usually we are not as excited about cumulative updates as we are about service packs, but Microsoft has recently changed its incremental servicing model (ISM) for SQL Server, and according to new model, cumulative updates are tested and treated just the same as service packs.
So let’s raise a toast to the first SQL Server 2016 update…
The build number of this cumulative update is 13.0.2149.0, and it includes a lot of fixes and improvements (152 to be accurate), as described in details here. It’s interesting to see how the 152 fixes are distributed between the various fix areas, so I prepare the following chart for you:
As you can see, the majority of fixes (58) are in the SQL Server database engine (SQL Service), which is not surprising. After that, Reporting Services is leading with 25 fixes, which makes sense as there were a lot of changes and improvements to SSRS in SQL Server 2016.
Here is just an example of a fix included in this cumulative update. In SQL Server 2016 RTM, when you run a query that contains the HASHBYTES function, SQL Server will use all available memory and may crash. This was fixed in CU1. If you use the HASHBYTES function in queries in your application, then this is an important bug fix for you.
Remember that each new cumulative update for SQL Server contains all the hotfixes and all the security fixes that were included with the previous cumulative update. Microsoft recommends that you download and install the latest cumulative updates for SQL Server. Cumulative Update 1 can be downloaded from here.