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Category: Versions

Upgrading to SQL Server 2025

Published 2025-12-02 by Kevin Feasel

John Deardurff checks out a tool built into SSMS 22:

Starting with SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 22, the Hybrid & Migration Component delivers a streamlined experience for upgrade assessment and side-by-side migration. This replaces the Data Migration Assistant (DMA) that retired on July 16, 2025, consolidating assessment and migration into one tool. So what are the key capabilities:

Click through for those capabilities and a few tips on how to use it. I’m not sure how clean the upgrade process is to 2025 versus standalone installation. I’d imagine that, if you’re not using something like ML Services, it’s probably fine.

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Thoughts on CPU Optimization and SQL Server Licensing

Published 2025-12-02 by Kevin Feasel

Brendan McCaffrey cuts some cores:

Minimizing CPU core counts is a perfect example of how to add value, and is arguably one of the easiest ways to do so.

I run this exercise in my environments about every six months, typically right before true-up time and again at mid-year, just to make sure we haven’t drifted too far.

Read on to see what Brendan does.

This next bit is weird for me to write because I’ve always been an Enterprise Edition snob. But another tip that I have is to take a very serious look at Standard Edition. If you’re using SQL Server 2025, you can have up to 32 cores and 256 GB of RAM in your buffer pool. Taking a look at the available features, losing online index (re)builds and superior availability groups sucks, but it’s not the end of the world for most shops. If you have large enough databases to really benefit from online index rebuilds, read-ahead scans, merry-go-round scans, batch mode on rowstore, and the like—generally, data warehouses or large OLTP instances with heavy read workloads—then those could benefit from Enterprise. But the cost in terms of lost functionality has decreased considerably in the past decade.

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SQL Server 2025 Now GA

Published 2025-11-19 by Kevin Feasel

A quick roundup on some big news from Microsoft Ignite.

John Deardurff hits the marketing materials:

The wait is over! SQL Server 2025 is officially here, and it’s more than just another version. I’ve been working with it during the last six months it was in public preview, and some of the features announced still surprised me. Let’s break down what makes this release so exciting and why it’s a game-changer for businesses and developers alike.

Andy Yun is pleased that Standard Edition just got a lot more powerful:

While all of the new features and such were available during Public Preview, one thing that was not public until now is that Standard Edition limits have been increased! Yay! The CPU core count limit is now 32 cores (or 4 sockets, whichever is lesser) and the max buffer pool memory per instance is now 256GB! Additionally, Resource Governor is now available for Standard Edition. And in SQL Server 2025, Resource Governor can also help you manage TempDB!

Reitse Eskens goes into several useful features, including Express Edition love:

You may have seen earlier blogs from me on SQL Server 2025; I won’t repeat that content in full, but I’ll provide a brief summary. You can find the full blogs here.

Something I wasn’t able to mention before, but you can now find in the documentation, is that SQL Server Express has upgraded its game! No longer a limit of 10 GB for the database, but 50 GB. This makes it much more useful in many scenarios.

Brent Ozar lays out a bunch of features as well:

If you use columnstore indexes, 2025 continues upon every release’s investments, with a bunch of improvements to make management easier on ordered indexes. In my early tests with clients, we’ve seen massive improvements in easier, faster, more online maintenance that we simply couldn’t do before.

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Import SSMS 21 Saved Connections into SSMS 22

Published 2025-11-18 by Kevin Feasel

Vlad Drumea digs in:

I wasn’t really planning on writing a blog post today, but I got curios if there’s anyway in which connections saved in SQL Server Management Studio 21 can be migrated in SSMS 22.

If you’ve installed SQL Server Management Studio 22 you may have noticed that the saved connection details weren’t migrated over from SSMS 21.

It’s documented in the list of known issues for SSMS 22 and marked as having no workaround.

Vlad builds a workaround, probably wearing a lab coat and fiddling with Bunsen burners and beakers full of oddly-colored liquids.

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SSMS 22 now Generally Available

Published 2025-11-12 by Kevin Feasel

John Deardurff shares the news:

Microsoft has announced that SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 22 is now generally available! This latest release brings powerful new capabilities to enhance your SQL Server experience:

Click through to see what’s new and see the original Microsoft blog post on the topic. One thing to note is that the query hint recommendation tool is still in preview, so you do need to select it as an individual component to install.

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SQL Server Standard Developer Edition

Published 2025-11-12 by Kevin Feasel

Chad Callihan is excited about a limitation:

I had written most of this blog post before seeing this month’s T-SQL Tuesday invite. I decided to hold off a few days to post because, while it’s no secret, I think it’s worth pointing out to those that may not know: before you spend time testing SQL Server 2025, make sure you consider what version of Developer Edition to use.

You may read that and ask, “What do you mean? Isn’t there only one Developer Edition?” That used to be the case, but not anymore.

Read on to see why this is important for a large number of companies.

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Migrating from PSCore 6 to PowerShell 7.5

Published 2025-10-31 by Kevin Feasel

Adam Bertram lays out what has changed:

You adopted PowerShell Core 6 early. You moved scripts to .NET Core. You dealt with the compatibility issues. Now Microsoft wants you to upgrade again.

Here’s why it matters: PowerShell Core 6 is no longer supported. Your scripts still run, but you’re missing security patches, performance improvements, and features that make PowerShell 7.5 worth the upgrade.

The good news? Moving from Core 6 to 7.5 is easier than the jump from Windows PowerShell. Most scripts work unchanged. But “most” isn’t “all,” and the differences matter.

Read on to see what will break when moving from PowerShell Core 6 to PowerShell 7.5.

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SQL ConstantCare Population Report for Fall 2025

Published 2025-10-30 by Kevin Feasel

Brent Ozar has an update:

SQL Server 2022’s market share has remained pretty stable since its huge jump in Q1, when people replaced a lot of 2016 servers with 2022. With SQL Server 2025’s release approaching quickly, I’m not sure SQL Server 2022 will ever approach the amazing dominant streak that 2019 experienced – that thing’s been a monster! It’s held over 40% market share for two years straight now. 

Read on for Brent’s predictions around SQL Server 2025. I tend to agree with Brent’s conclusion around why adoption for 2025—assuming no unforeseen catastrophe in the product—will be more like what we saw with SQL Server 2016 or 2019 versus 2017 or 2022. Which is good, because 2022 and 2025 both have some nice additions to T-SQL that will make database developers’ lives easier.

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