Azure Data Studio

A modern open-source, cross-platform hybrid data analytics tool designed to simplify the data landscape.

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Connectivity

The migration from the Active Directory Authentication Library (ADAL) to Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) was a significant undertaking by the team. This was necessary as ADAL support ends in June of this year, and it provides multiple benefits for those environments using Azure Activity Directory (AAD). AAD users should notice an improved and more reliable experience, particularly around token refresh and connection stability. This also helped us fix an issue in the MySQL extension for AAD. 

Additional changes include improved loading of Azure resources and new Dedicated SQL Pools and Azure Synapse Analytics nodes in the Azure tree. Azure Data Studio 1.41 also provides the ability to customize the name of firewall rules for Azure SQL and adds support for connecting to a server alias (versus a server name).

If you have applications that use ADAL, please see the Migrate applications to the Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) page for more information.

Object explorer

A new area of focus in this release is Object Explorer (OE), and this will continue to be an area we improve upon in the next few releases. Those with serverless Azure SQL previously reported issues with folders not expanding correctly, and with databases being brought online (thus incurring costs) when it was not expected. Other users noted that expanding OE timed out after 45 seconds. We have addressed all these issues in this release, in addition to adding support for Ledger Views.

Query results

The query results window got a fair bit of attention this release as we work through the backlog of open issues. First, we introduced a new configuration option to show or hide the action bar in the query results view. The Query Editor > Results: Show Action Bar option can be found in the command palette (CTRL + , ) if you type Show Action Bar. By default, the action bar is shown in the query results pane, as seen in the screenshot below:

There are also improvements around opening JSON files and the visibility of the horizontal scroll bar in the query results pane. Azure Data Studio 1.41 now correctly handles line breaks in cells when copying from the results grid and pasting to an editor, and the auto-resizing of columns in the output pane has been updated to better display column contents. Finally, cell selection and navigation in the results grid have been enhanced, and we introduced additional summary details when selecting multiple cells in the results window:

Extensions

Multiple teams have been working on updates to various extensions available from Azure Data Studio.  For SQL Projects, we have improved the experience of finding projects by providing a dropdown that lists saved projects, rather than requiring users to browse to their location. We had reports that differences in schema compare were not highlighted correctly, and that problem has been fixed.

Users of the SQL Migration extension will see an improvement in the migration process as we better support migrations to specific subscriptions (such as government), and the extension now includes the Premium Series Memory Optimized SQL MI SKU as a recommendation where appropriate.

MongoDB and Microsoft Azure continue to build on their partnership by introducing an extension for MongoDB Atlas and Azure Data Studio on the Azure Marketplace. This Extension is available in Public Preview as of today, Wednesday, January 25, 2023.  You already know that Azure Data Studio is a modern open-source, cross-platform hybrid data analytics tool designed to simplify your data landscape, and customers can use Azure Data Studio to work with their data sitting in one or more Azure data services. MongoDB Atlas on Azure provides a fully managed solution for MongoDB in the cloud, and you can now seamlessly connect to and query data on MongoDB Atlas right from Azure Data Studio. This allows you to interact with data on MongoDB Atlas alongside other data services and provides a unified view of your data estate.  If you are an Azure customer that is curious about building applications with MongoDB Atlas and want to amplify your integrated experience inside Azure Data Studio, try Pay-As-You-Go Atlas on the Azure Marketplace today!

With this 1.41 release, the Polyglot Notebooks extension will be removed from the Azure Data Studio Extension Marketplace. For a polyglot notebooks experience, we recommend folks use the Polyglot Notebooks in Visual Studio Code.

Odds and ends

Continuing on our path of adding support for arm64, we now include support for arm64 on Windows.  Whether you run iOS or Windows, Azure Data Studio 1.41 now provides the capability to leverage arm64, resulting in improved performance.

We are pleased to see users embracing Table Designer and Query Plan Viewer, two features that became generally available (GA) in the November release. In 1.41 we fixed an issue related to opening Table Designer for Ledger tables, and one related to creating a table when another table with the same name already exists.

There were also two requests specific to Query Plan Viewer that got attention in this release. When saving query plan files from Azure Data Studio, we now incrementally append a number to the end of the file for unique naming, and we’ve altered the default folder location when saving plans for a more consistent experience.

Lastly, we had previously announced that we were removing Big Data Cluster functionality from Azure Data Studio. This removal has been delayed until a later release.

Looking forward

We are already at work on the next release of Azure Data Studio and are making plans for what we want to accomplish in 2023. You can expect that we will continue to review backlog issues and address them as they relate to an existing area of focus. We have more changes coming related to the connection dialog and object explorer, and you will also see improvements in user management. Finally, if you see a comment on an issue you opened–whether recent or ages ago–please feel free to respond and provide more information if you are able. 

The post Azure Data Studio 1.41 release appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

In addition to these two features now being generally available, we are pleased to announce enhancements in the assessment tooling for Oracle database migration to Azure Database for PostgreSQL and Azure SQL, both in preview. The MySQL extension for Azure Data Studio is also available in preview, as is Azure SQL Database Offline Migration support in the Azure SQL Migration extension. We would also like to introduce arm64 macOS support, for which many of you have been patiently waiting for (more details below).

As you may already know, SQL Server 2022 is generally available today, and we have introduced support for this latest version of SQL Server via our deployment wizard. We have made improvements to the connection experience, including a change to the Encrypt property, which now defaults to True. Finally, we completed another set of Visual Studio (VS) Code merges that included numerous bug fixes and UI improvements, some of which are highlighted below.

arm64 macOS support in Azure Data Studio

Over one year ago we had a request to add support to Azure Data Studio for arm64 on macOS. We are pleased to announce that in this release, said functionality is now available. Folks using arm64 macOS will notice that the Azure Data Studio builds for Apple Silicon or Universal will load and run significantly faster as emulation is no longer needed. There are a few extensions that still need to be modified to have the same support and we are working with the appropriate teams to get those changes in place. Interested in seeing support for arm64 on Windows? Share your comments and upvote here.

Change in default value for Encrypt Property

Version 1.40 of Azure Data Studio includes an important change to the Encrypt property for the MSSQL provider connections, which is now enabled by default (set to True). 

In Azure Data Studio 1.39 and below, the Encrypt connection property was on the Advanced page and defaulted to False. As shown below, both the Encrypt and Trust server certificates have been moved to the main Connection Details for Microsoft SQL Server connections, with information icons to provide more detail on hover.

The Encrypt property continues to support two options:

1. True (now the default value)
2. False

Upon upgrading to Azure Data Studio 1.40, users should review the options selected for Encrypt and Trust server certificate before connecting. More information about this change can be found here.

Introducing assessment tooling for Oracle database migrations to Azure Database for PostgreSQL and Azure SQL (preview)

Enabling the migration of Oracle workloads to Azure PostgreSQL and Azure SQL through a unified assessment tool has been a key ask from customers and we are excited to announce the preview release of this experience in Azure Data Studio via the Database Migration Assessment for Oracle extension (check out this demo to see this in action). With these changes, migration planning is simplified for customers looking to modernize their data estate to Azure managed databases. This new assessment scenario helps customers speed up migrations while reducing risk, making it easier than ever to move Oracle databases to Azure. Read more in this blog announcement.

MySQL extension is now available in Azure Data Studio (preview)

As you may have heard at Microsoft Ignite, the MySQL extension for Azure Data Studio is now available in preview, bringing more flexibility to database management. With the MySQL extension for Azure Data Studio, you can now connect to and modify MySQL databases, taking advantage of the modern editor experience and capabilities in Azure Data Studio. You can learn more here.

Announcing Azure SQL Database Offline Migrations in the Azure SQL Migration Extension (preview)

This new migration capability in the Azure SQL Migration extension provides an end-to-end experience to modernize from SQL Server to Azure SQL Database. This extension allows you to perform a migration readiness check with actions to remediate possible migration blockers, export the assessment results, and get right-sized Azure recommendations. These recommendations include an all-new elastic recommendation model to meet your database performance needs. Thanks to the Azure SQL Migration extension, you can perform offline migrations of your SQL Server databases running on-premises, SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines, or any virtual machine running in the cloud (private, public) to Azure SQL Database. Learn more from this blog announcement. For a hands-on experience using this extension, please refer to the Migrate SQL Server to an Azure SQL Database offline using Azure Data Studio tutorial.

Query History Extension is now generally available

In the August release blog, we noted the benefits of the Query History extension which includes the ability to view previous queries executed and double-click on any query in the history to open it in a new window for viewing or execution. The team has addressed a few accessibility issues, added the ability to limit the number of entries stored, and it is now generally available through the extensions pane in Azure Data Studio. For those of you who write queries and tune code, the history provided from this extension can be a time-saver.

Visual Studio Code Merge—from 1.62 to 1.67

The UI framework of Azure Data Studio is forked from VS Code, and the codebase needs to be kept up to date with updates to its parent framework via merges, completed periodically by our engineers. This Azure Data Studio release includes updates that bring ADS to version 1.67, from its previous version, 1.62. While there are many updates in this release that users will appreciate, we have highlighted a few of our favorites below.

New Side Panel and Configure Layout settings 

Azure Data Studio now offers more flexibility to customize the layout in the user interface via the addition of Side Panels. With Side Panels, you can now house views from the Side Bar or the bottom Panel. Unlike moving the bottom Panel to the left or the right of the editor, the new Side Panel works in addition to the bottom Panel so you can see more sets of views at once. In the illustration below, the terminal is being dragged to the right and dropped to create the Side Panel. The user can then switch views in the Side Bar (by opening the global Search view), while keeping the terminal view visible.

To better configure layouts, we added a Customize Layout button in the title bar. This button provides a new interactive quick pick experience, allowing you to control all aspects of layout configuration in one place.

To learn more about these layout changes, check out the Visual Studio Code January 2022 release notes.

Local history

The local history of files is now available in the Timeline view. Every time you save a file in query editor, a new entry is added to the list. Each local history entry contains the full contents of the file at the time the entry was created and in certain cases, can provide more semantic information—for example, indicate a refactoring. In the illustration below, a CREATE TABLE T-SQL script is edited by inserting a statement to insert an additional column. Upon saving, this new entry is saved to the Local History tab and then compared to its previous version. You can also restore the content to previous versions, as well as delete or rename the entry. To learn more about this update, please check out this Visual Studio Code March 2022 release note.

Modified menu settings

The Settings editor search control now contains a funnel button on the right side. Clicking on the button shows a list of filters that you can apply to the search query to filter down the results.

Learn more

If you haven’t already installed this release of Azure Data Studio, please see how to on our download page.

The team is focused on improving Azure Data Studio from both a feature and stability perspective, and we hope these improvements make your daily use of ADS even better. 

We would love to hear your feedback on this release—you can find us on Twitter or log an issue on GitHub.

The post Azure Data Studio November release appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

SQL Server Management Studio

First, in alignment with the announcement of preview for SQL Server 2022, we released SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 19 Preview 2. 

SSMS 19 is the recommended version of SSMS for SQL Server 2022. The release notes for SSMS document current limitations and we will have additional previews in upcoming months with expanded capabilities.

Developer Tools

Second, we continue to support developers working with databases via the latest version of the SQL Database Projects extension in Azure Data Studio. We now have preview support for SDK-style SQL projects which benefit developers who work in cross-platform environments or ship applications through CI/CD platforms. In addition, the SQL Database Projects extension provides a local development environment for Azure SQL Database through an emulator. The emulator provides a containerized database to allow for testing and development in an offline and independent environment, thereby reducing resource requirements and increasing developer autonomy. We are working to expand the capabilities of the Azure SQL Database emulator in future releases.

Further enhancements in the development space include the integration of SQL bindings with the mssql extension in VS Code. This enables users to develop Azure Functions with Azure SQL bindings and while the SQL bindings extension currently only integrates with C# Azure Functions, support for JavaScript, TypeScript, and Python have been added to the preview for SQL bindings as well.

We also have a set of driver, library, and command-line interface (CLI) updates to note:

• SqlServer PowerShell module released 22.0 preview.
• SqlPackage/DacFx update to 19.1.
• SQL Management Objects is now open source.
• Microsoft fork of go-mssqldb driver for golang.
• Lightweight CLI go-sqlcmd in preview.

Internally we continue to explore additional open-source opportunities and remain committed to expanding scripting and library support. Across new and established landscapes we continue our commitment to empowering developers with open source projects. In the go ecosystem, we look forward to expanding the capabilities of the go-mssqldb driver and enabling new CLI scenarios with go-sqlcmd.

Azure Data Studio

Lastly, we released Azure Data Studio 1.36.2 immediately prior to Microsoft Build, and it contains key improvements driven by our partners. Azure Data Studio now supports connectivity to Power BI Datamarts, for which the preview was just announced. Power BI Datamarts are a self-service analytics solution that allows individuals with little to no code experience to quickly and easily bring their data into a fully managed database. Azure Data Studio (as well as SSMS) provides users the ability to explore the objects and the data to get started with initial analysis and query writing.

We introduced .NET Interactive Notebooks in Azure Data Studio through the .NET Interactive Notebooks extension. With multi-language support for Jupyter Notebooks you can now code in T-SQL, PowerShell, C#, JavaScript, and more. 

This .NET Notebooks in Visual Studio Code blog provides an example to get started. And finally, you can now access Mongo resources in Azure Cosmos DB using the MongoDB Extension for Azure Cosmos DB (currently in preview).

What’s next for SQL Server client tools

Though we are almost halfway through the calendar year, we expect to deliver even more improvements and new functionality in the latter half of 2022. We have several exciting tools in preview (SSMS 19 and SqlServer PowerShell module 22.0) that we look forward to advancing towards general availability, along with new versions of Azure Data Studio and VS Code SQL extensions. We appreciate your support and feedback as we continue to ship releases across a breadth of new and established experiences for SQL Server. Please continue to submit feedback for Azure Data Studio and SQL Server Management Studio to support the evolution of client tools.

The post Recapping recent updates to client tools in SQL Server appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.