What software, launched in 2006, significantly enhanced data storage and processing capabilities?

The software that significantly enhanced data storage and processing capabilities, launched in 2006, is Hadoop. Hadoop revolutionized the way large volumes of data are processed and stored, particularly for big data applications. It introduced a distributed file system, which allowed data to be stored across multiple machines, thereby enabling massive scalability. This distributed approach facilitated the processing of large datasets using the MapReduce programming model, allowing for efficient data analysis and computation.

Hadoop was widely adopted by organizations looking to leverage the vast amounts of data they were collecting, and it provided a cost-effective solution compared to traditional relational database systems. Its architecture is designed to handle failures gracefully, ensuring that data remains accessible even when individual components of the system fail, which is essential for large-scale data processing.

Other options presented, while relevant to data management, either do not pertain to the same scale of data handling as Hadoop or were established before the specified launch year. SQL Server and Oracle Database are traditional relational database management systems, and Microsoft Access is a desktop database application. These options do not embody the same level of innovation in handling big data brought by Hadoop.