With JSON now the default format for moving data between clients and servers, SQL Server adds JSON support to make it easier to get your data out of the database and down to the client.

PySpark development is now fully supported in Visual Studio Code. Through an extension built for the aforementioned purpose, users can run Spark jobs with SQL Server 2019 Big Data Clusters.

SQL Server 2016 lets you treat JSON objects like rows in a table, allowing you to use data from AJAX queries in joins, updates and any other SQL statement you can think of.