This month, to mark the 20th anniversary of BrentOzar.com, I’m stepping back and looking at the big picture rather than blogging about database problems & solutions like I usually do.
Twenty years ago, I tried to switch to Linux.
Yesterday, SQL Server Management Studio 18.0 shipped. Here's the official announcement, the download page, and the release notes.
Yes, it's still free, and yes, they're still adding features. Yes, they removed database diagrams and the debugger. (Update Apr 27: if you want the debugger, use Visual Studio - download.) No, SSMS 18 doesn't run on Windows 8 or older. Yes, it still has bugs (all software does), but they've been working hard on making it less buggy, as evidenced by the release notes:
Azure Data Studio is Microsoft's cross-platform tool for T-SQL developers. It's still relatively young, so it has some missing areas of functionality.
When you run DMV queries to look at query plans, they show up as XML, which isn't very friendly. For example, here I'm running sp_BlitzCache in my Azure SQL DB:
