Ever wonder how fast people are adopting new versions of SQL Server, or what’s “normal” out there for SQL Server adoption rates? Let’s find out in the spring 2023 version of our SQL ConstantCare® population report.

Out of 3,002 monitored servers, here’s the version adoption rate:

The big 3 versions are all within 1% of the last quarter’s numbers:

• SQL Server 2019: 33%
• SQL Server 2017: 19%
• SQL Server 2016: 28%

On the other extreme:

• SQL Server 2022: 2% – which is right on track with 2019’s adoption rates after it came out. It’s not low at all – it’s right in the same ballpark.
• Azure SQL DB: 1%
• Azure SQL DB Managed Instances: 2%

Just 13% of the population are running unsupported major versions (2014 & prior).

Here’s how adoption is trending over time, with most recent data at the right:

In other news, we do actually have 6 folks now running SQL Server on Linux! It’s a total of 32 SQL Servers, a mix of 2017 and 2019, running on a mix of Ubuntu and Amazon Linux. That’s about a 1% adoption rate. Only 4 of those are Dev or Express Editions, too. I’m still feeling pretty comfortable with my 2018 prediction that in 2026, <5% of SQL Servers would be running on Linux.

Other interesting tidbits:

• 8% of SQL Servers are in a failover cluster
• 23% of SQL Servers have Availability Groups enabled (not necessarily using it, it’s just enabled)
• 6% of servers have Filestream enabled (not necessarily using it, it’s just enabled)
• 34% are fully patched to the latest possible Cumulative Update (that’s amazing!)

34% of servers are fully patched to the latest possible Cumulative Update. That’s awesome! Nice work, y’all. My first thought was, “Oh, I bet the old versions like 2012 are fully patched, but the new ones aren’t patched because the patches keep coming out.” Nope, it’s actually the opposite: the most-currently-patched folks are on 2016 & 2017. The least-patched are the unsupported versions that haven’t had patches in forever. Disappointing.

Only 7% of SQL Servers are on unsupported versions or builds. That’s awesome too! Keep up the good work on patching, y’all.