Jana Sattainathan shows how to automate downgrade of SQL Server Enterprise to Standard:
Standard edition is limited to lesser of 4 sockets or 24 cores with a maximum memory of 128 GB plus a few truly Enterprise level features like Compression, Availability Groups, Partitioning etc are off limits. I would say most places would fall under this threshold for “Standard” but feel inferior to say they run “Standard”! I don’t, especially when money matters.
But, all kidding aside, most shops don’t even realize that they do not use any Enterprise features on 90% of their instances but pay Enterprise price anyway! If you don’t trust me, go check for yourself at your place – we did, on hundred’s of SQL Server instances! I painfully built the infrastructure to do this type of thing using PowerShell in seconds if not a few minutes, for scanning hundreds of servers/instances.
There’s a lot here, so if you’re thinking about downgrading in a post-2016 SP1 world, Jana’s post is a must-read. But even with the new features, there are still quite a few enterprise-level features that make it so I don’t want to live without Enterprise Edition.