SAP ASE 16.0 SP01 Hits the Shelves… A Brief Introduction.

[Former Member]

SAP issued the SP01 release for ASE 16 a couple of days ago. 

Having done so, SAP continues with its stable pace of release-a-quarter for its ASE product:

16	SP0	PL1	24.04.2014
16	SP0	PL2	01.07.2014
16	SP0	PL3	04.09.2014
16	SP0	PL5	15.12.2014
16	SP01	PL0	17.03.2015

SP01, however, is a major release - at least based on its content.

If we have a close look at the bug fixes incorporated into this release we may indeed be impressed.  Talking in rough numbers, ASE has a general rate of about 600 bug fixes a year.  Given the quarterly release policy we might have expected to see around 150 fixes in SP01.  However, SP01 has come out with... 536 unique bug fixes since SP0 PL5.  This is a huge number.  I'd definitely put an effort to check this release with the real application load and see how it performs.  Worth an effort.

From the functionality point of view, the release isn't as fat.  It has not introduced any new MDA metrics since the SP0 PL5 (the same 1604 distinct counters).  SAP has squeezed all the new features that are there into one neat page in documentation (as opposed to 12 pages on 16.x release in general).

These are the features added:

1. Dynamic histograms

2. Mount and unmount encrypted databases

3. Using select into in multistatement transactions

4. Create or alter databases to use compressed indexes

5. sp_help terse

6. sp_helpartition terse

7. sp_helpindex terse

I wont copy the digest from the documentation here.  You may simply read it on your own on the official SAP help site (http://help.sap.com/ase1601/#section2).

From the SCN posts we also know that SAP engineers work on unleashing more transactional power for ASE (by rethinking its latching mechanism).  ASE 15.7 has been able to boost TPS power twice (or even three times) as compared to ASE 12.5.4 based on my personal experience with some of its clients.  I am eager to see the TPS rate for 16.0.1.0 (or the release which will incorporate the new latching mechanism - who knows, may be it is kept secret for ISUG 2015...).  Especially since now IMDB OLTP instances are being set up by the real production ASE systems.

ASE is here to stay.  If only its marketing has been more visible.

But that is another story.

Have fun with the new release.

Cheers,

ATM.