What is missing in SQL Server 2016?

SQL Server 2016 is the first SQL Server version that has some built-in support for temporal data. However, the support is still quite basic. SQL Server 2016 supports system-versioned tables only. You saw at the beginning of this chapter that application-versioned tables, and of course bitemporal tables, add much more to the complexity of temporal problems. Unfortunately, in order to deal with application validity times, you need to develop your own solution, including your own implementation of all the constraints you need to enforce data integrity. In addition, you need to deal with the optimization of temporal queries by yourself as well.

It would also be nice if you were able to define the retention period for the historical rows, like you can define for the Query Store. Currently, you have to do the history data cleanup by yourself.

If you are familiar with analytical applications and data warehouses, you might think that system-versioned temporal tables...