Across the announcements we shared in Barcelona, SQL continues to build on the foundation enterprises have trusted for decades. This gives organizations more control where their workloads run, more room for applications to grow, and more intelligent tools for operating databases in the agentic era.

Running data and AI on infrastructure you control

For organizations across Europe, digital sovereignty has become a priority. They need greater control over where data resides without putting modern app development, performance, or AI beyond reach.

This is a reality that Microsoft SQL has been preparing for decades, steadily strengthening security, resilience, and performance across its ecosystem. Capabilities such as Transparent Data Encryption, released in 2008, Always Encrypted in 2016, and Ledger in 2022 have continued to strengthen the security and control organizations need for sovereign environments.

Building on this history, we’re now announcing general availability of SQL Server on Azure Local for both connected and disconnected operations.

This release brings the Azure control plane and management to customer-controlled environments, providing a consistent SQL and Azure experience for workloads that need to remain close to their applications, users, or physical operations. This includes:

• Connected deployments: Organizations can use Azure-based management while keeping workloads and data local.
• Azure Local Disconnected Operations (ALDO): Organizations get a local control plane for their private sovereign environments, supporting operations where cloud connectivity is unavailable or restricted.

For organizations that want to leverage AI in these environments, Foundry Local on Azure Local, now in preview, enables teams to build AI experiences close to their data. Applications, databases, and AI models can remain within the customer-controlled environment, so sovereignty requirements don’t put AI innovation out of reach.

For deployment options, licensing, and local AI capabilities, learn more about SQL Server on Azure Local.

Giving applications room to grow with Azure SQL Database Hyperscale

As applications mature, their demands rarely stay predictable. Workloads grow, usage patterns change, and the database needs to constantly adapt without forcing teams to rethink the application architecture around it.

Azure SQL Database Hyperscale is designed to provide flexibility while delivering the performance applications need. Azure SQL Database Hyperscale is SQL Server rearchitected for cloud scale. By decoupling compute and storage, Hyperscale gives applications room to evolve and the scale to meet more demanding workloads.

Now, we’re extending that flexibility and performance even further:

• More compute: 160 and 192 vCore Premium-series service objectives are now generally available.
• More scale and better cost efficiency: Hyperscale serverless auto-pause scales to zero and instantly resumes. Along with higher-density elastic pools, both these features are now in preview, providing cost efficiency to customers.
• Vector search: DiskANN vector indexes are now generally available, bringing high-performance vector search to operational data. SQL’s vector index now has full DML support, allowing you to modify data in vector-indexed tables while the index automatically stays updated in real-time.
• A simpler path to Hyperscale: A new Azure Arc migration experience is in preview, bringing assessment, provisioning, migration, validation, and cutover into a centralized workflow.

The scale figures become more meaningful when they represent businesses preparing for the moments when demand is highest and the tolerance for disruption is lowest. SAP Commerce Cloud offers a compelling example.

SAP and Microsoft developed a plan to migrate over 6,000 production databases to Azure SQL Database Hyperscale while prioritizing a seamless transition for customers. Hyperscale removed earlier storage and compute ceilings, giving SAP access to as many as 192 vCores and 128 TB of storage for individual databases, alongside zone redundancy supporting a 99.995 percent service-level agreement.

The result: SAP Commerce Cloud processed $17.8 billion in merchandise with 100 percent uptime during Black Friday and handled nearly 11,000 orders per minute at peak. That is the kind of growth a database platform must be ready to support.

Our goal is to give customers the ability to choose a strong foundation early and keep building on it. Hyperscale combines the familiar SQL platform with an architecture that accommodates changing application needs, including new AI experiences operating directly on business data.

Turning database signals into guided action

As applications and database estates grow, signals become scattered across engines and environments, making issues harder to spot and resolve.

Database Hub in Microsoft Fabric, now in public preview, brings inventory, health, performance, security, risk, and optimization signals into a centralized view of your database estate. Administrators and developers can quickly see where attention is needed, explore aggregated or per-resource trends and opportunities through consolidated charts and dashboards, and act from within the hub using database agents.

Database agents for SQL and PostgreSQL on Azure help turn these signals into guided action. The agents reason over database signals, continuously helping administrators understand performance bottlenecks, identify optimization opportunities, recommend actions, and, within appropriate guardrails, help carry those actions forward. SQL Database Agent combines SQL’s native intelligence that includes IQP (Intelligent Query Processing), which is based on decades of domain-specific development and workload telemetry. Intelligent Query Processing, along with AI for reasoning, makes it the industry’s best DB agent.

The preview experience begins with database agents for SQL in Database Hub and for PostgreSQL in Visual Studio Code, with these capabilities coming to both surfaces over time. Our vision is a consistent, extensible agent experience that works cohesively across the tools and environments developers and database professionals use, rather than intelligence tied to a single interface.

Across these agentic operations, human judgment remains central. The aim is to shorten the distance between a signal and a well-informed action while respecting existing permissions, operational guardrails, and developer control.

Bringing AI assistance into familiar developer workflows

As AI continues to become a bigger part of database development, our goal is to make it useful in the tools and workflows developers and DBAs already rely on.

Agent Mode for GitHub Copilot in SQL Server Management Studio is now generally available, helping developers reason across database objects and complete multistep tasks from a single goal or prompt. It can investigate dependencies, analyze execution plans, generate and evaluate DDL, review proposed changes, and iteratively gather context to help users move complex database work forward. SQL Projects and Schema Compare are also generally available in SSMS, alongside SQL Formatter in SSMS and Visual Studio Code, making it easier to bring database changes into source control and maintain consistent T-SQL.

We are also extending these capabilities beyond the development environment. Data API builder adds vector and JSON support to help connect SQL data with modern applications and agents through REST, GraphQL, and MCP endpoints.

Together, these announcements help teams bring AI into database development while keeping familiar tools and engineering practices at the center.

What we build next

Thank you for being part of this community. The announcements we have made at SQLCon Barcelona are a milestone, but the work that matters most is what you carry home and create with it. Whether that means revisiting your applications’ digital sovereignty needs, giving them room to grow, or finding a better way to understand and manage your data estate, we want our investment in SQL to help turn that momentum into something valuable for our users and customers. Here’s where you can start:

• Deploy SQL Server on Azure Local
• Deploy SQL Server on Azure Local Disconnected Operations
• Move your database to Azure SQL Database Hyperscale
• Try Database Hub in public preview

You can learn in greater detail about all the announcements at aka.ms/sqlconnews. Thank you for your continued trust and we cannot wait to see what you build with SQL. Until then, adios!

The post SQLCon Barcelona 2026: Advancing SQL with greater control, scale, and intelligence appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

Today, SQL Server on Azure Local is generally available for connected and disconnected operations. With this release, customers can modernize where their data resides while maintaining control over infrastructure, connectivity, and data placement. They can bring AI closer to their data with Foundry Local on Azure Local, currently in preview, and use eligible existing SQL Server licensing investments.

Run SQL Server where your data needs to stay

SQL Server has a long history of supporting mission-critical workloads on customer infrastructure. Azure Local builds on that flexibility by bringing Azure infrastructure to customer-owned environments, giving organizations a consistent platform for running SQL Server across datacenters and edge locations.

Customers can choose the deployment model that fits each environment:

• Connected environments: Run SQL Server locally on Azure Local, while using Azure Arc to manage SQL Server resources through Azure.
• Azure Local Disconnected Operations (ALDO): Run SQL Server in environments where external connectivity is restricted, intermittent, or unavailable, with operations continuing locally.

This means organizations can choose the deployment approach that fits the requirements of individual environments rather than making the same connectivity decision across their entire data estate.

Bring AI closer to your data

Modernizing infrastructure is only part of the opportunity. Organizations also want to bring generative AI to existing enterprise data, including information that cannot leave their environment.

With Foundry Local, customers can run AI models on Azure Local infrastructure alongside SQL Server, bringing inferencing closer to the data. This enables organizations to explore AI-powered applications while keeping sensitive information and processing within their environment.

This can be particularly valuable in sovereign, regulated, and edge scenarios, where organizations want the benefits of AI but need greater control over where models execute and where their data is processed.

The goal is simple: customers should not have to move sensitive data somewhere else simply to begin building intelligent applications around it.

Build on your existing SQL server investments

Modernization should also make it easier to build on existing investments.

SQL Server is licensed separately from the Azure Local infrastructure platform. For connected deployments, customers can use eligible existing SQL Server licenses, including licenses with Software Assurance or qualifying subscriptions, or use pay-as-you-go licensing through Azure Arc.

For fully disconnected deployments, customers can use eligible existing SQL Server licenses through Azure Hybrid Benefit.

This gives organizations options to modernize their SQL Server environments while taking advantage of eligible licensing investments they already own.

A foundation for sovereign and edge data

Enterprise data estates increasingly span cloud, datacenter, edge, and sovereign environments. The opportunity is not to force every workload into the same deployment model, but to give organizations a consistent path to modernization across them.

SQL Server on Azure Local extends that choice to mission-critical SQL Server workloads, helping customers modernize close to their data, applications, and operations while bringing Azure-consistent infrastructure and local AI capabilities into those environments.

SQL Server on Azure Local FAQ

What is SQL Server on Azure Local?

SQL Server on Azure Local lets organizations run SQL Server on Azure Local infrastructure in their own datacenters and edge locations. It supports SQL Server workloads on virtual machines running Windows Server or Linux.

What is the difference between connected and disconnected deployments?

Connected deployments use Azure connectivity and can use Azure Arc to manage SQL Server resources through Azure. Disconnected operations are designed for environments where external connectivity is restricted, intermittent, or unavailable, with operations continuing locally.

Who should consider SQL Server on Azure Local?

It is designed for organizations that need local control because of sovereignty, regulatory, latency, operational continuity, or edge requirements, including public sector, defense, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, and other regulated or connectivity-constrained environments.

Can customers use existing SQL Server licenses?

Eligible existing SQL Server licenses can be used according to applicable licensing terms. For connected deployments, customers can also use pay-as-you-go licensing through Azure Arc. Fully disconnected deployments use eligible existing licenses through Azure Hybrid Benefit.

Can organizations run AI close to their SQL Server data?

Foundry Local on Azure Local brings AI inference to Azure Local environments and is designed to keep data processing on-premises. As of September 29, 2026, Foundry Local on Azure Local is currently available in preview, so availability and capabilities may change before general availability.

Where can I find deployment guidance?

Microsoft Learn provides guidance for deploying SQL Server on Azure Local, including hardware selection, SQL Server installation, monitoring, performance tuning, high availability, and related Azure hybrid services.

Get Started with SQL Server on Azure Local

SQL Server on Azure Local is generally available for connected and disconnected deployment scenarios.

• SQL Server on Azure Local – Overview
• Deploy SQL Server on Azure Local
• Deploy SQL Server on Azure Local Disconnected Mode
• Learn more about Azure Arc-enabled SQL Server

Additional resources

• Manage SQL Server licensing and billing with Azure Arc
• Foundry Local on Azure Local overview
• Foundry Local deployment overview

The post SQL Server on Azure Local is now generally available appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

Summary Attendees can expect sessions covering SQL Server 2025 innovations, Azure SQL Hyperscale, vector search, AI-powered applications, developer productivity, and the evolving relationship between SQL and Fabric.

The SQL community joins Fabric in Europe for the first time at the Microsoft Fabric and SQL Community Conference , September 28 to October 1, 2026 in Barcelona, Spain. Technical sessions and workshops will dive deep into the SQL topics you care about most, and explore solutions to your organization’s most pressing data challenges, from strengthening data sovereignty to powering agentic AI and unlocking trusted, actionable intelligence.

Across the industry, organizations are balancing modernization efforts with growing demands around AI adoption, scalability, security, and developer productivity. This conference will bring together practitioners, engineers, and Microsoft experts to share approaches, lessons learned, and technical guidance on these evolving challenges.

Here’s a closer look into some of the topics and sessions we’re most excited about.

SQL Server 2025: AI, vector search, and performance improvements

Innovation isn’t limited to the cloud. SQL Server 2025 offers new AI capabilities, performance improvements, and best-in-class developer experience for workloads run on-premises.

As organizations evaluate how to bring AI capabilities closer to their data while maintaining performance, security, and governance requirements, many are looking for ways to modernize existing SQL Server environments without disrupting critical workloads.

At the European Microsoft SQL Community Conference, will cover how newer features help improve performance, with integrations that simplify application development, and how new capabilities like vector search opens new possibilities for AI-powered applications.

• Exploring Optimized Locking in SQL Server 2025
• JSON and REST APIs—the Best of Both Worlds now in SQL Server 2025
• Vector Search in SQL Server 2025—Basics and Beyond

Azure SQL Database Hyperscale for scalable and AI-ready applications

Modern applications require more than tradition databases offer. As AI-powered applications and data volumes continue to grow, scalable database architectures are becoming increasingly important for organizations looking to balance performance, reliability, and operational efficiency.

Azure SQL Database Hyperscale delivers the scalability, performance, security, and AI-ready foundation needed to support everything from mission-critical business applications to new, cloud-native solutions. Explore how the cloud-native Azure SQL Database Hyperscale can grow without limits while maintaining the reliability and trust your business depends on.

• Running Mission-Critical Systems on Azure SQL Hyperscale—Enable AI, Copilot, and Enterprise Features
• Azure SQL Hyperscale: The Cloud Database for the era of AI

Developer productivity with Database Hub, SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), Visual Studio Code, and GitHub Copilot

AI is reshaping applications development, and we are bringing AI-powered capabilities to the tools developers need and use every day. Learn how Database Hub delivers one place to explore, observe, govern, and optimize your entire database estate, without changing how each service is deployed. Dive into how we’re reducing friction across the development cycle with popular tools like SSMS, MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code along with the latest integrations with GitHub Copilot to drive automation, and ship apps faster.

• Top SQL Features for Developers You Might Have Missed
• Data Productivity Tour: Query, Deploy, Optimize

How SQL Server and Fabric are converging across the data estate

SQL workloads increasingly intersect with analytics, AI, and broader data platform initiatives. Bringing the SQL Server and Fabric communities together gives attendees an opportunity to learn how transactional, analytical, and AI-powered workloads are evolving across the Microsoft data ecosystem.

One registration gives you access to both SQLCon Europe and Fabric Conference experiences. Register for the Microsoft Fabric and SQL Community Conference 2026 and join us September 28 to October 1, 2026.

Continue the conversation with SQLConTV

Can’t make every session? SQLConTV will bring expert interviews, technical demos, speaker conversations, and behind-the-scenes event coverage directly to the SQL community.

Whether you’re attending in person or following along remotely, SQLConTV will offer additional perspectives on the technologies, trends, and discussions shaping the future of SQL, data, and AI.

Take a look back at previous FabCon TV episodes here.

The post What’s next for SQL? Performance, scale, AI, and developer productivity at the European SQL Community Conference appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

As of today, July 14, 2026, SQL Server 2016 has reached end of support.

For the past decade, SQL Server 2016 has helped organizations run mission-critical applications and support the data needs of their business. Whether it was end-to-end encryption with Always Encrypted or performance improvements with In-Memory OLTP, SQL Server 2016 was shaped by evolving data platform needs and what we heard directly from customers like you.

Last year, we shared guidance on how to prepare for this milestone: Protect and modernize SQL Server 2016 workloads with Microsoft. Now, after 10 years of powering innovation, the focus shifts to what comes next.

Beyond end of support: Setting up your data platform for what’s next

For organizations running SQL Server 2016, this transition is an opportunity to improve how your database environment operates. Moving to a modern platform can help reduce operational overhead, avoid recurring upgrade cycles, and simplify database management. It can also support new scenarios such as advanced analytics and AI-driven applications built on operational data.

Organizations are already taking action by moving to Azure SQL or upgrading their SQL Server. The Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) upgraded to SQL Server 2025 to modernize its SQL Server deployment and streamline how operational data flows into Microsoft Fabric, enabling faster analytics and data-driven decision-making across its global operations.

SQL Server plays a key role in powering our systems, enabling us to operate at scale and deliver on our promise to customers everywhere.

—Javier Villegas, IT Director for Database Administration and Business Intelligence Services, MSC

Assessing your options for end-of-support workloads

For organizations that still run on SQL Server 2016, there are three paths that help you stay protected while planning the next phase of your data platform modernization:

1. Move to Azure SQL: Modernize your data platform using Azure SQL, helping you reduce operational overhead and remove the need for ongoing upgrades. (Best to avoid future upgrade cycles.)
2. Upgrade to SQL Server 2025: Move to the latest version of SQL Server with enhanced performance, security, and AI capabilities. (Best for keeping your databases on premises or in hybrid cloud.)
3. Deploy Extended Security Updates (ESU): Get critical security updates for SQL Server 2016 while you’re planning a transition. (Best for short-term protection while planning next steps.)

Each path offers a way to maintain security and compliance while planning long-term business and infrastructure goals. Here’s what each of these options would mean in practice:

Option 1: Move to Azure SQL

Moving to Azure SQL provides a managed approach to updating your SQL Server environment. Azure SQL platform-as-a-service (PaaS) services handle patching and backups, provide high availability, and come with built-in version updates, allowing your team to focus less on infrastructure management and more on delivering value.

For many SQL Server 2016 workloads, Azure SQL PaaS provides a path to reduce ongoing maintenance and automate resiliency, scalability, and security. With strong backward compatibility, applications can be migrated with minimal changes in most scenarios—and where updates are required, GitHub Copilot can help accelerate code changes and modernization efforts.

Azure supports multiple options depending on your migration and modernization goals:

1. Azure SQL Database: A managed database service designed for modern applications. Azure SQL Database Hyperscale enables independent scaling of compute and storage to handle growing data and workloads without changing your application. (Choose this if you don’t need instance-level features and want a simpler, app-focused model that can flexibly scale as your data grows.)
2. Azure SQL Managed Instance: A SQL Server-compatible service that supports your existing workloads with minimal changes, enabling easier migration and reducing the need to manage your infrastructure. (Choose this if you want the closest PaaS experience to SQL Server with minimal application changes.)
3. SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines: A flexible option for running SQL Server in Azure while retaining full control over your SQL environment and operating system, including custom configurations and dependencies. (Choose this if you use software, configurations, or third-party components that require a specific SQL Server version or instance-level control of your SQL Server.)

Frontier Accelerate for Databases

Reduce the cost of migration by combining Microsoft-funded delivery support, Azure credits, and investment programs.

Get started

Option 2: Upgrade to SQL Server 2025

Upgrading to SQL Server 2025 allows you to stay on a supported platform while bringing modern capabilities directly into your existing on-premises or hybrid environments.

SQL Server 2025 is built to support evolving application and data needs, helping teams modernize while preparing for AI-driven scenarios. It includes new and improved capabilities such as:

• Performance and engine improvements: Optimizations across query processing, indexing, and concurrency help improve performance and stability for high-volume transactional workloads.
• Security and data protection: Built on the existing SQL Server security model with continued investments in encryption, access control, and compliance support for regulated environments.
• Built-in AI: Comes with native support for vector search and semantic workflows, enabling AI-driven applications directly on operational data without requiring separate data pipelines.
• Integration with Microsoft Fabric: Enables mirroring of operational data into analytics environments for near real-time insights, without impacting core transactional workloads.

This path is especially relevant for organizations powering large-scale applications or complex data environments where control, performance, and consistency are essential. It allows you to modernize in place, retain your existing infrastructure, and prepare your platform for the next generation of applications without requiring the shift to a new operating model.

Option 3: Deploy Extended Security Updates (ESU)

Some migrations take time, and we understand that not every environment can move immediately. Extended Security Updates (ESU) provide a short-term option to maintain security coverage for SQL Server 2016 after end of support, helping reduce risk while you plan and execute your next step.

Extended Security Updates are available for workloads running in Azure, including SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines and Azure VMware Solution, and for on-premises and multi-cloud environments through Azure Arc. They are offered as a paid program to extend security coverage while modernization work is underway.

This option is best suited for environments with application dependencies, testing requirements, or migration complexity that require additional time. Extended Security Updates are designed as a temporary bridge that helps you maintain your existing operations while you move to a supported platform like Azure SQL or SQL Server 2025.

Take the next step

As you plan this transition, there are clear paths to stay secure and move forward based on your environment and priorities. Whether you choose to modernize on Azure, upgrade to SQL Server 2025, or use Extended Security Updates as a bridge, taking a structured approach will allow you to reduce risk and ensure continuity.

If you need help evaluating your options or getting started, reach out to your Microsoft representative to explore the right path forward for your environment.

Resources

Explore the following resources to help you plan your next steps:

Migrate SQL Server workloads to Azure

• Azure SQL Database: Explore a cloud-native database platform for modern applications.
• Azure SQL Managed Instance: Learn how to migrate SQL Server workloads with minimal changes.
• Azure Database Migration Service: Assess, plan, and migrate SQL Server workloads to Azure.

Upgrade SQL Server to a supported version

• SQL Server 2025: Explore features, performance improvements, and AI capabilities in the latest release.
• Upgrade SQL Server using SQL Server Management Studio: Step-by-step guidance for upgrading SQL Server versions.
• AI capabilities in SQL Server: Learn about vector search, semantic processing, and AI scenarios in SQL Server.

Extended Security Updates (ESU)

• Extended Security Updates overview: Understand ESU coverage, timelines, and how to apply updates.
• SQL Server 2016: Stay Protected While You Modernize: Maintain your existing workloads while you upgrade or modernize.

The post SQL Server 2016 end of support is here: Plan your next steps appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

This year is especially meaningful, as it marks the return of a Microsoft‑led SQL community event, while also showcasing how SQL continues to evolve as a critical part of Fabric. It is not just about new technology, but about reconnecting with each other and building the future of SQL together.

It’s inspiring to see the Microsoft SQL community continue to grow and engage, with user groups worldwide keeping conversations active across the SQL portfolio and a lot of customers using Microsoft SQL to innovate every day. With a comprehensive portfolio built on strategic common foundations and available across edge, PaaS, and SaaS, Microsoft databases form a unified platform for modern enterprise needs, whether you are migrating and modernizing, building cloud-native AI applications, or unifying your data.

Migrate and modernize with Azure SQL

Many of our customers are not modernizing in one big leap. You are evolving from SQL Server to hybrid and then to cloud services, and you want that journey to feel familiar, predictable, and low risk. That is exactly what Azure SQL is designed to deliver. Built on a consistent Microsoft SQL foundation from on premises to the cloud, Azure SQL brings AI capabilities directly into your database experience, along with enterprise‑grade security, high availability, and the flexibility to scale as your needs grow. Azure SQL is fully SQL compatible, delivers strong performance and low latency, and supports hybrid scenarios through Azure Arc.

AI agents are becoming an important accelerator for database migration and modernization at Microsoft, helping our customers reduce manual effort and move faster with more guided experiences across the journey. The general availability of GitHub Copilot in SSMS 22 is a great example of that investment in action: you can use the same GitHub Copilot experience you already use in Visual Studio and VS Code, now inside SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), with chat and code assistance that helps you write, edit, and refactor T‑SQL more quickly and confidently. Whether you are a developer or database administrator (DBA), new to SQL or highly experienced, GitHub Copilot can support common workflows like improving queries and assisting with troubleshooting and administration tasks right where you work, and we are continuing to expand what it can do.

Today we are announcing savings plan for databases, a flexible, spend-based pricing option that helps you save up to 35%¹ vs. pay-as-you-go prices on a one-year commitment. Savings plan for databases is designed for modern, evolving database environments: Customers commit to a fixed hourly spend for one year and receive lower prices across eligible Azure database services. Savings are automatically applied to the highest-value usage each hour, helping reduce costs while supporting migration, modernization, and architectural change.

Build cloud-native AI apps at scale

Once you move to the cloud, the questions shift. How do you build faster, scale smarter, and unlock more value from your data without re‑architecting everything you have already built? That is where Azure SQL Database Hyperscale comes in.

With Azure SQL Database Hyperscale, customers gain better price-performance, elastic scale and resilience for any workload, without the cost or disruption of rewriting T‑SQL or reworking operational models. Its unique architecture, built on shared storage and multiple replicas, allows you to scale reads independently from writes. With built‑in HTAP isolation, applications can handle massive transactional and analytical workloads without complex redesign. New capabilities now in public preview extend that foundation even further, including the SQL MCP Server for securely connecting SQL data to AI agents and Copilots, as well as larger 160 and 192 vCore options for high‑throughput workloads.

We’re delivering faster, more capable vector indexes to power AI applications. Recent enhancements improve vector search performance and efficiency with no code changes required. With full insert, update, and delete support, vector indexes stay current in real time, enabling dynamic applications. Features like quantization, iterative filtering, and tighter query optimizer integration provide faster, more predictable results, helping teams build responsive AI experiences directly on their SQL data.

Temenos built its next‑generation banking platform, Temenos Core, on Azure using Azure SQL Database Hyperscale to achieve global scale, high availability, and resilient performance. The platform processes billions of transactions daily and more than 17,500 transactions per second at peak. By building on Hyperscale, Temenos reduced onboarding time, accelerated innovation, and shifted banks from worrying about downtime to competing on availability and digital innovation.

Unify your data estate with SQL database in Fabric

We continue to raise the bar on enterprise readiness for SQL database in Fabric by bringing enterprise-grade security and compliance capabilities directly into the platform. Today at SQLCon, we announced the general availability of features including SQL Auditing, Customer‑Managed Keys, and Dynamic Data Masking, and the preview of workspace‑level Private Link. We brought these enhancements to help customers meet strict governance and regulatory requirements without adding operational complexity. The result is confidence that your SQL workloads in Fabric are secure, compliant, and ready for production.

SQL database in Fabric is becoming even more powerful for AI‑driven applications. The same vector indexing enhancements available in Azure SQL Database Hyperscale are now built into SQL database in Fabric as well. Because both are powered by the same Microsoft SQL engine, customers benefit from consistent performance, capabilities, and innovation across the SQL portfolio—making it easier to build intelligent applications wherever their data lives.

Finally, moving to SQL database in Fabric is simpler than ever. The Migration Assistant now supports SQL database in Fabric as a target destination. It provides a Copilot-assisted experience that helps SQL developers assess readiness, migrate schema, identify compatibility issues, and copy data with less manual effort. By preserving familiar SQL skills and workflows, customers can modernize at their own pace while accelerating time to value on Fabric’s unified analytics and AI platform.

There is one more Fabric innovation that matters deeply for how we deliver Microsoft databases as a unified platform. As applications grow more sophisticated, most organizations now rely on a mix of SQL and NoSQL databases across cloud, on‑premises, and edge environments. Provisioning, monitoring, and maintaining health across a growing database fleet often requires multiple tools and portals, making it harder to see what’s happening and manage at scale.

To address this, we are introducing the Database Hub in Microsoft Fabric, now available in early access. The Database Hub provides a unified database management experience that brings together databases across edge, cloud, and Fabric into one coherent view. From a single place, database teams can explore, observe, govern, and optimize their entire estate, including Azure SQL, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc, and Azure Database for MySQL without changing how each service is deployed or operated.

Built for scale, the Database Hub introduces an agent-assisted, human-in-the-loop approach to database management. Intelligent agents continuously reason over estate-wide signals to surface what changed, explain why it matters, and guide teams toward what to do next, while built-in observability, delegated governance, and Copilot-powered insights help teams move from insight to action with greater confidence. With the Database Hub, teams spend less time navigating tools and more time enabling what comes next: unlocking deeper integration across applications, analytics, and AI from a single control plane for the Microsoft databases portfolio.

Database Hub is available today in early access. Sign up today and see how the Database Hub can bring clarity and control to your database estate.

Moving forward with the SQL community

SQLCon is about bringing the SQL community together. It is about rebuilding connections and shared learning. It also reflects our long-term commitment to SQL. With a comprehensive portfolio built on strategic common foundations and available across edge, PaaS, and SaaS, Microsoft databases provide a unified platform for modern enterprise needs, whether you are migrating and modernizing, building cloud-native AI applications, or unifying your data. We are investing in SQL for the future, alongside the community that continues to shape it.

Finally, SQLCon is coming to Europe! Join the global data and SQL community from 28 Sep – 01st October, 2026 in Barcelona, Spain for hands-on learning, expert insights, and real-world stories. Register to be a part of it. I can’t wait to see you there.

Additional SQL resources

• Microsoft Azure Summit: Migrate and Modernize with Agentic AI
• What is new about SQL database in Fabric
• Learn more about savings plan for databases

¹Customers may see savings estimated to be between 0% and 35%. The 35% savings estimate is based on one Azure SQL Database serverless running for 12 months at a pay-as-you-go rate vs. a reduced rate for a 1-year savings plan. Based on Azure pricing as of March 2026. Prices are subject to change. Actual savings may vary based on location, database service, and/or usage. 

The post Advancing agentic AI with Microsoft databases across a unified data estate appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

Enhancing your SQL workflow

From a tooling perspective, we are investing heavily in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and the MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code. SSMS is where we primarily aim to serve data professionals like you including database administrators, data analysts, database developers, data scientists, and data engineers, and we have been doing so for two decades now. The MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code is where we primarily aim to serve application developers. Additionally, from a web interface perspective, we are investing in the Microsoft Azure portal and Microsoft Fabric web experiences to support Azure and Fabric cross-functional roles and tasks to be done.

In the past year, we’ve modernized SSMS—now based on the latest release of Visual Studio—and brought in numerous customer requests including dark mode, Arm64 support, Fabric support, GitHub Copilot, and more. We also brought rich, AI-assisted experiences to Visual Studio Code with GitHub Copilot Ask and Agent mode support, in addition to many new and improved capabilities in areas around designing schemas and tables, provisioning and getting connected (including Fabric and local containers), query results, and more. In the web, we launched a unified Azure SQL experience in the Azure portal, and shipped SQL database in Fabric, now generally available.

Building the future of SQL development

In addition to delivering quality releases and consistent functionality across these tools and experiences that enable you to efficiently manage and develop with Microsoft SQL Server, we are aiming higher for the future. Our vision is to equip every database with source control and CI/CD integration, streamline trusted and reliable deployments, provide consistent and tailored Copilot experiences, and deliver modern drivers, SDKs, and CLIs as well as a robust data API and MCP Server. We’re also investing in rich experiences that help developers take full advantage of AI capabilities in the SQL engine, making it easier to build and optimize AI-ready applications.

Delivering on that vision requires focus and critical prioritization, a responsibility that we’re taking with deep consideration and increased transparency to you. Full roadmap details across our tools and experiences can be found at the end of this article. If you were using Azure Data Studio or SDK-style SQL projects in Visual Studio 2022 and are impacted by the retirement of these tools, you can still use the original SQL projects in Visual Studio 2026 so that your established solutions can upgrade to the latest Visual Studio version without compatibility conflicts. SDK-style (Microsoft.Build.Sql) projects are generally available in Visual Studio Code with the SQL Database Projects extension and are directly integrated with SQL database in Fabric source control. In the first half of 2026 SDK-style SQL projects will be added to SQL Server Management Studio, empowering more database professionals with foundational tools for database DevOps.

See what’s next and join the conversation

We know that you will have feedback for us, now and as we go forward, and we want to thank you in advance for that, as it is critical that we understand what you need from your SQL tooling. This benefits you, us, and the entire community.

• SQL Server Management Studio roadmap
• SQL Server Management Studio feedback site
• MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code roadmap
• MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code feedback
• SQL projects and DacFx feedback
• Microsoft SQL feedback site
• SQL database in Fabric roadmap
• SQL database in Fabric Ideas site

The post How the Microsoft SQL team is investing in SQL tools and experiences appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

One consistent SQL is a promise of a unified experience that spans edge, cloud, and software as a service (SaaS), empowering developers to create intelligent applications with ease, while enabling data professionals to modernize on their terms. Write once, deploy anywhere because customers run diverse SQL estates, and we meet them wherever they are. Whether you’re running workloads with SQL Server, modernizing in Azure SQL, or activating real-time analytics in Microsoft Fabric, one consistent SQL unifies your data estate, bringing platform consistency, performance at scale, advanced security, and AI-ready tools together in one seamless experience and creates one home for your SQL workloads in the era of AI.

With a consistent platform, optimized performance, and multi-layered security, workloads scale dynamically while staying secure and highly available. And building intelligent, scalable applications is faster than ever with developer-first tools combined with AI capabilities. This is enterprise-grade performance for the era of AI, with one consistent SQL powering innovation across hybrid, multi-cloud, and AI-powered environments, all anchored by a unified data estate.

Delivering a consistent SQL platform across cloud and on-premises

From edge to cloud, one consistent SQL is Microsoft’s commitment to deliver a consistent experience—powering mission-critical workloads, next-generation apps, and data-driven intelligence. It provides unified management across infrastructure, platform, and software services for consistent operations in hybrid scenarios. Developers can use familiar SQL skills and tools to build and manage applications across environments, while sovereign cloud support addresses data residency and compliance requirements for regulated industries.

And now, the centerpiece of this vision takes the stage: SQL Server 2025 is now generally available. Built on SQL Server’s foundation of security, performance, and availability, this release introduces built-in AI capabilities and developer-focused enhancements. These features enable organizations to use existing data to support AI initiatives securely and at scale, all within SQL Server using the T SQL language.

Achieving optimized SQL performance and advanced security

In a world where trust is non-negotiable, organizations expect the same performance, availability, and security standards everywhere in their data lives. They adapt to the demands of your workload without compromise—delivering resilience and speed while keeping data secure and operations steady. These expectations are heightened for mission-critical workloads, where uptime and reliability directly impact return on investment. Businesses need a platform that not only meets these requirements but also evolves to handle growing complexity without adding operational burden.

The next generation of Azure SQL Managed Instance is now generally available to help organizations modernize with improved performance and simplified migration. The release offers expanded storage and database capacity, flexible compute and memory options, and features designed to support diverse workload requirements. These enhancements provide a foundation for scaling applications and managing data securely while maintaining compatibility with existing SQL investments. Customers are already benefiting from Azure SQL Managed Instance. Hexure, a life insurance software company, slashed processing time by 97.2%.

The path to Azure SQL Managed Instance also got easier. SQL Server migration in Azure Arc is now generally available. Copilot-assisted migration streamlines the entire process with real-time replication, confident cutover, and trusted failover—reducing months of work to days and lowering total cost of ownership.

Knowing that we have a reliable and highly secure database platform positions us to think about how we can use AI in ways that will benefit our customers and their customers most. With Azure SQL Managed Instance in place, we’re very well equipped to continue in our role as a leader in insurance tech

—Warren Perlman, CTO, Hexure

Empowering developers with AI-ready SQL tools at scale

One consistent SQL means you can use your existing skills and familiar development tools together with AI-powered capabilities to simplify application creation. As organizations look to integrate generative AI into business processes, complexity and time to value remain major challenges. Analysts predict that most AI applications will be built on existing data platforms—reducing development effort and accelerating delivery. Customers want integration, not disruption, and they expect AI assistance embedded in the tools they already use.

This vision is supported by features that combine intelligence with security. GitHub Copilot integration enables developers to work with AI assistance directly in environments like Visual Studio Code and SQL Server Management Studio 22. Native support for retrieval of augmented generation scenarios includes vector search and semantic indexing within SQL Server and Azure SQL, while secure enclaves and Always Encrypted protect sensitive data during processing. Connections to Azure AI services and governance tools streamline data preparation and compliance, while elastic infrastructure supports training, inference, and deployment at scale. 

Creating a unified data estate for analytics and AI

Microsoft Fabric connects operations, analytics, and governance in one unified experience, unlocking the full potential of SQL data. As organizations prepare for real-time AI applications, the ability to bridge transactional and analytical workloads becomes essential. Analysts describe this capability as “translytical,” a foundation for responsive applications that combine speed with depth. A future-ready data strategy must integrate operational data with analytical insight, and Fabric delivers that integration without adding complexity.aka

Today at Microsoft Ignite 2025, we announced two key advancements: the general availability of Fabric databases and database Mirroring in Fabric. Fabric databases unify operational and analytical data within Fabric, backed by OneLake, the open data foundation for analytics and AI. SQL database in Fabric supports transactional processing, real-time analytics with zero Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL), and AI workloads side-by-side. In addition, database Mirroring enables replication of SQL Server and Azure SQL into Fabric for analytics and AI scenarios without migration or refactoring. Early adopters such as AP Pension have consolidated decades of fragmented data using Mirroring for SQL Server in Fabric and SQL database in Fabric, creating a centralized architecture with automated delivery and strong governance. These capabilities position Fabric as a cornerstone for organizations seeking to modernize data strategies and prepare for AI-powered applications.

Eastman built a new agentic sales copilot app, enabling their sellers to instantly query unified customer data using natural language. By integrating SQL querying with Fabric’s analytics and vector capabilities, the copilot retrieves hyper-precise answers directly from the database.

When it comes to SQL in Fabric, a huge advantage is you have the robustness of SQL Server, but already in the context of Fabric. The fact that it already has so many security features and integrations with the rest of the Fabric platform is a huge advantage.

—Logan Finke, Principal AI Data Architect at Eastman

Innovate with one consistent SQL

One SQL is a promise of consistency, security, and flexibility from edge to cloud, helping you innovate without disruption. Build intelligent apps powered by agentic AI, unlock real-time insights, and meet compliance demands, all with the tools and skills you already trust. Make your legacy databases your launchpad to innovation.

One engine. One experience. One SQL.

Take the next step today

• Learn more about SQL Server 2025 and download now.
• Learn more about next-generation Azure SQL Managed Instance.
• Learn more about SQL database in Fabric and database Mirroring in Fabric.

The post One consistent SQL: The launchpad from legacy to innovation appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

Continue reading to learn about how three organizations—Thomson Reuters, Hexure, and CallRevu—each jumpstarted their transformation with migration of their on-premises workloads to Microsoft Azure. As a result, organizations were able to improve operational efficiency and accelerate AI-powered innovation. Their stories reveal how fully managed platform-as-a-service solutions like Microsoft Azure SQL Managed Instance helps organizations move from legacy constraints to a scalable and secure AI-ready foundation ready to power future possibilities.

Modernization at scale: Thomson Reuters  

For Thomson Reuters, one of the world’s most trusted providers of tax and accounting solutions, modernization was less of an option and more of a necessity. Supporting over 7,000 firms and 70,000 users during the peak of tax season required an infrastructure that was both robust and scalable. The company previously hosted more than 18,000 databases and over 500 terabytes of data on third-party servers, an approach that came with high costs, operational complexity, and challenges scaling to meet seasonal demand.  

By migrating this massive estate into Azure SQL Managed Instance from another cloud hosting environment, Thomson Reuters achieved modernization at scale. With programs like Microsoft Azure Migrate to support every step of the migration journey, and automation tools like PowerShell and Azure Resource Manager templates, they were able to streamline deployments and maintain performance while minimizing disruptions. Azure’s fully managed platform allowed Thomson Reuters to streamline database administration and automated key tasks like backups and updates. As a result, their teams could focus on delivering value to customers rather than managing infrastructure. Azure Virtual Desktop together with Windows 11 facilitated access to tax preparation applications, reducing complexity and costs.  

The benefits were immediate and significant. Thomson Reuters gained: 

• Consistent performance during seasonal peaks.
• Improved resiliency.
• Reduced support overhead.
• Optimized costs across licensing and infrastructure.  

Thomson Reuters now has a foundation for continued growth and the flexibility to scale its services as demand requires.

Operational efficiency and performance: Hexure  

While Thomson Reuters’ story highlights scale, Hexure’s migration shows the operational efficiency gains that come from moving to a fully managed platform with Azure SQL Managed Instance and Microsoft Azure App Service. Hexure provides digital solutions for insurance and financial services companies—managing sensitive customer information across many databases and applications.  

The company faced challenges with aging infrastructure that slowed down critical processes and demanded heavy manual intervention. Provisioning new customer instances, managing backups, and handling failovers was time-intensive. Processing delays made it harder to serve clients with the speed and reliability customers expect.  

Migrating to Azure SQL Managed Instance changed that equation. Hexure cut processing times by up to 97%, transforming overnight batch jobs into near-instant operations. Migration times were reduced by more than 80% thanks to built-in compatibility and automation. With Microsoft Azure Key Vault, Hexure could better manage cybersecurity and protection of their data. Features like point-in-time restore, automated backups, and geo-replication not only boosted resilience but also ensured compliance with industry regulations.  

Equally important, the move allowed Hexure to:  

• Onboard new customers in minutes versus hours.
• Deliver faster shipping cycles for features and platform improvements.
• Reduce management of infrastructure—including servers.

With migration, Hexure could now focus on innovation and customer service. For an industry where trust and responsiveness are critical, this operational leap forward directly translates into stronger client relationships.

Innovation with AI and insights: CallRevu  

CallRevu’s story illustrates the next frontier: innovation. CallRevu helps automotive dealerships improve lead conversion, follow-up, and customer experience by analyzing phone calls across more than 5,000 locations. Handling this volume of conversational data requires not only advanced analytics, but scalable platform. 

With a fully managed solution built on Azure SQL Managed Instance, Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service together with Microsoft Azure AI services, CallRevu created a platform that goes beyond storing and managing data. It ensures reliable, scalable performance for call data and transcriptions, while services like Microsoft Azure OpenAI for real-time summaries and insights. This integration allows CallRevu to surface actionable insights in real time—helping dealerships connect marketing to results, improve agent performance, and ultimately drive more sales. 

The company also benefits from the operational simplicity that Azure SQL Managed Instance delivers. By migrating from their on-premises SQL Server environment, they were able to benefit from automated backups, scaling, and monitoring to reduce administrative overhead, while built-in security helps protect sensitive customer interactions. Data is mirrored in Microsoft Fabric allowing Power BI dashboards to generate real-time insights. With a strong and agile data foundation in place, CallRevu can focus on innovating faster—bringing AI-powered capabilities to an industry where customer engagement is a critical differentiator while also:  

• Increasing customer satisfaction by 10%.
• Saving USD500,000 annually in labor costs.
• Increasing lead conversion by 15%.

Take the next step in your transformation journey  

Modernization is not a one-time project—it’s a journey that is different for every organization. For some organizations, the first step is simply migrating off legacy servers. For others, it’s about rethinking how operations can run more efficiently. And for many, it’s about leveraging cloud and AI to create entirely new opportunities.  

The experiences of Thomson Reuters, Hexure, and CallRevu highlight how migration to a platform-as-a-service anchored on database solutions like Azure SQL Managed Instance supports every stage of that journey. By providing a managed, secure, and scalable cloud platform, backed by the tools and programs, organizations can migrate with confidence, operate more efficiently, and innovate faster.

Ready to get started? Here are some free tools you can start trying today: 

• Try Azure SQL Managed Instance free today. 
• Learn how Azure Migrate can help you get started.

Join Microsoft at PASS Data Community Summit 2025 to continue your learning journey and how Azure is making it easier than ever to start your transformation journey. Learn more on our sponsorship and presence.

The post Innovation spotlight: How 3 customers are driving change with migration to Azure SQL appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

Adoption gains speed 

We’re seeing incredible momentum with SQL Server 2025 since its public preview debut at Microsoft Build. From lighting up community events like SQL Saturdays to being featured at SQLBits 2025 with CTP 2.1, the excitement is electric. SQL Server 2025 isn’t just keeping pace, it’s setting a new standard. Customers are adopting SQL Server 2025 twice as fast as SQL Server 2022 based on downloads of the public preview.

In the early adoption program, participants were asked to rank the SQL Server 2025 features they were most interested in testing. Built-in AI emerged as one of the top priorities, alongside performance and scalability enhancements. In addition, based on feedback from our preview customers, developer-friendly enhancements—especially the introduction of native JSON support—along with powerful T-SQL additions like regular expression support, have also been positively received—streamlining data processing and boosting developer efficiency. Enterprise customers like Entain, Mediterranean Shipping Company, Kramer & Crew, Schultz, and Bühler are already hands-on, exploring how SQL Server 2025 can power their next-gen applications.

As one of the largest SQL Server consulting firms in Brazil, we are excited about the AI features in SQL Server 2025, especially the potential for text processing that can benefit companies of all sizes. AI brings new ways to process and extract insights from data and with SQL Server being the core repository for many businesses, native AI features like embeddings, REST API support, and vector indexes are game changers. They eliminate the need for external vector databases, making AI integration more seamless and efficient.

—Rodrigo Ribeiro Gomes, Head of Innovation, Power Tuning

SQL Server 2025 introduces seamless Azure and Arc integration and features, enhanced JSON and RegEx capabilities, and enhancements to database engine.

—Shailesh Panday, Deputy Manager, IT, Buhler AG

Explore capabilities with new preview features

SQL Server 2025 introduces a new preview feature option, giving customers the flexibility to balance production stability with early access to innovation. When turned on, it unlocks access to upcoming features still in preview, enabling developers to test and evaluate new capabilities like vector indexing, improved text chunking, and change event streaming without impacting production workloads (a complete list of preview features is here).  

This opt-in model brings the agility of the cloud to on-premises SQL Server, empowering customers to innovate on their terms. Preview features are provided in alignment with Microsoft’s supportability guidelines. They are intended for evaluation and testing purposes only and are not recommended for use in production environments. The database itself in SQL Server 2025 remains as fully supported and is an essential component of the general availability release. Preview features are optional and designed to operate independently in preview mode. Enabling these features does not impact the stability or supportability of your database.  

SQL Server has traditionally used trace flags to enable or disable specific behaviors within the database engine. The new preview feature switch in SQL Server 2025 is fundamentally different from traditional trace flags. While trace flags are primarily used for debugging and diagnostics, often by DBAs or support engineers to control internal engine behavior, the preview feature switch is designed for developers to explore and test new, user-facing capabilities. Trace flags typically operate at the instance level, affecting the entire server, whereas the preview feature switch is a database-scoped configuration, offering more granular control and safer experimentation without impacting other workloads. Learn more about the preview features in the frequently asked questions.

New feature highlights

As SQL Server adoption on Linux continues to grow, we’re excited to introduce preview support for Ubuntu 24.04, one of the most widely used and trusted Linux distributions. This marks a significant step forward in our commitment to cross-platform flexibility and developer choice. By embracing the latest Ubuntu release, SQL Server 2025 ensures developers and IT teams can build and run modern, cloud-connected applications on a familiar and up-to-date Linux environment. 

PolyBase plays a critical role in enabling analytics scenarios by allowing SQL Server to query external data sources like Microsoft Azure Data Lake or Azure Blob Storage using familiar T-SQL. As many of SQL Server’s modern analytics capabilities are deeply integrated with Microsoft Azure services, secure and seamless access to cloud storage is essential. With preview support for Managed Identity authentication to Azure Storage, SQL Server 2025 takes a step forward in simplifying security and access management. This enhancement aligns with SQL Server’s decade-long track record as the most secure database and reinforces our commitment to enterprise-grade security. By eliminating the need for storing secrets or keys, Managed Identity makes it easier and safer for customers to build scalable, cloud-connected analytics solutions using PolyBase. 

Mirroring in Microsoft Fabric is a game-changing capability that unlocks seamless, near real-time analytics on operational data from SQL Server 2025. To help customers manage compute resources efficiently during the mirroring process, SQL Server now supports creating a dedicated Resource Governor (RG) pool. Each phase of mirroring—such as ingestion, transformation, and synchronization—can be assigned to a specific workload group, giving administrators fine-grained control over resource allocation. These workload groups can be placed in the same or different pools depending on capacity planning needs.  

Discover more 

SQL Server 2025

An AI-ready enterprise database with best-in-class security, performance, and availability.

Download RC0 today

• Download release candidate (RC0). 
• Learn more on Microsoft Learn.
• Discover what’s new in SQL Server 2025 in our latest Mechanics video.

The post Accelerating SQL Server 2025 momentum: Announcing the first release candidate appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

End-to-end migration simplified

If you’ve been using SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc, you’re likely familiar with continuous migration assessments that offer target recommendations, technical readiness, and cost estimates. Now, we’re taking the next step forward by introducing automated, end-to-end migration capabilities in SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc.

Once you’ve assessed the Azure readiness of your SQL Server instances, you can now select or provision your Azure targets such as Azure SQL Managed Instance, without jumping between various tools or places in the Azure portal. This streamlined workflow eliminates context switching and simplifies provisioning. You’ll see estimated costs during the provisioning process, giving you clear visibility and confidence to plan ahead. Plus, you can take advantage of the free Azure SQL Managed Instance offer to evaluate at no cost, making it easier to get started. 

Real-time database replication is also integrated into the new migration capability. This new method, built on top of distributed availability groups, enables near real-time database replication from SQL Server to Azure SQL Managed Instance. Setting up real-time replication manually can be a complex multi-step process, but Azure Arc simplifies the entire process while providing best-in-class monitoring. If a customer decides to go back to on-premises, Azure SQL Managed Instance Link also supports seamless failback (if the source SQL Server instance is SQL Server 2022 and above). 

Migrate with confidence 

The new capability empowers customers to migrate with confidence. Before officially cutting over, you can validate that the target Azure SQL Managed Instance meets your business requirements by using the target instance as a read-only replica.  

In addition, the client connection summary feature in SQL Server, enabled by Azure Arc, automatically and continuously captures and displays which clients are connecting to each instance. This replaces the previous manual and time-consuming process of tracing applications to their databases, giving customers clear visibility and helping ensure a smooth transition to Azure.

Get started today 

If you’re looking to simplify and accelerate your migration to Azure, this new connected capability can help you get there faster—with less downtime, lower overhead, and more confidence. 

• Learn more on our Tech Community blog.
• Learn more about the new migration capability in Azure Arc on Microsoft Learn.
• Onboard your SQL Server to Azure Arc today.
• Learn more about continuous migration assessment from SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc.

Frequently asked questions 

1. What is SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc?  

SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc extends Azure services to SQL Server instances hosted outside of Azure: in your data center, in edge site locations like retail stores, or any public cloud or hosting provider. 

Azure Arc enables you to consistently manage SQL Server instances across hybrid and multicloud environments, bringing cloud innovations such as automated updates, unified policy, best practices assessment, and advanced security to SQL Server running anywhere.

2. What’s the continuous migration assessment from Azure Arc?  

Microsoft has announced the general availability of continuous migration assessments for SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc, marking a step forward in simplifying cloud migration planning. This release introduces a redesigned assessment experience that provides deeper insights and more intuitive navigation, especially for single Arc-enabled instances. 

One of the standout features is the integration of retail pricing visibility across all Azure savings options, including Azure Hybrid Benefit (AHB), reserved instances, and Azure savings plans. These pricing insights are now available for Azure SQL Database, SQL Managed Instance, and SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines (VMs), helping users make informed cost decisions.  

3. What is Azure Database Migration Service? 

Azure Database Migration Service is a fully managed service designed to seamlessly migrate databases to Azure with minimal downtime. It supports both homogeneous migrations (such as SQL Server to Azure SQL) and heterogeneous migrations (such as Oracle to Azure PostgreSQL).

4. What are the migration methods in the new migration capability? 

The following methods are built into the migration process. Azure SQL Managed Instance link enables near real-time database replication using distributed availability groups. Log Replay Service uses SQL Server log-shipping technology and requires a brief planned cutover. Review the Microsoft Learn page to understand the differences between these two migration methods and choose the option that best suits your needs.

The post Accelerate SQL Server Migration to Azure with Azure Arc  appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.