Beyond relational is actually only a marketing term. The relational model, used in the relational database management system, is nowhere limited to specific data types, or specific languages only. However, with the term beyond relational, we typically mean using specialized and complex data types that might include spatial and temporal data, and XML or JSON data, and extending the capabilities of the Transact-SQL language with CLR languages like Visual C#, or statistical languages like R. SQL Server, in versions before 2016, already supports some of the features mentioned. Here is a quick review of this support, which includes:

• Spatial data
• CLR support
• XML data