SQL Server 2022

I don’t get it. I’ve given this feature one chance after another, and every time, it takes a smoke break rather than showing up for work. The latest instance involved the recent Query Exercise where you were challenged to fix a computed column’s performance. In the comments, some folks noted that performance of the query…

Six months ago today, Microsoft announced that SQL Server 2022 was ready. Except it wasn’t. And it still isn’t ready. See, look at the very first hero in their list of 2022’s new features: The very first one is “Business continuity through Azure – Bidirectional DR to Azure SQL.” However, buried way down in the footnotes, Microsoft admitted:…

It’s May 2023, and believe it or not, some of the flagship features in Microsoft’s latest version still aren’t ready for prime time yet. Good news, though: there are a few things that genuinely make your life easier with minimal work required on your part. Forget rewriting code, though – in this session, I’ll show…

You’re planning to migrate to a new version of SQL Server, and you want your databases to be faster after the migration. This is NOT a blog post about how to migrate – that’s the same as it’s been for a long time. Go build the new 2025 servers, and use log shipping or database…

To follow along, you’ll need: An Apple Mac with an Apple Silicon processor (M1, M2, etc – not an Intel or AMD CPU) Azure Data Studio Docker Desktop 4.25 or newer An Internet connection 1. Download & Run the SQL Server Container We’ll follow the instructions from Microsoft’s documentation, but I’m going to abbreviate ’em here…

For the final release of SQL Server 2022, Microsoft popped a surprise that wasn’t in the release candidates: Your choices are: Install a free edition: Evaluation (which times out after 180 days), Developer (which isn’t allowed to be used for production purposes), or Express (which is limited to small databases & hardware resources) Use pay-as-you-go-billing,…

Microsoft released SQL Server 2022 today, November 16, 2022. The footnotes indicate: SQL Server 2022 free editions (Developer edition, Express edition) are available to download starting today. SQL Server 2022 paid editions (Enterprise edition, Standard edition) will be available in Volume Licensing (Enterprise Agreement, Enterprise Agreement Subscriptions) customers starting today, which represents the majority of…

Microsoft has an official list of what’s new in 2022 overall, but here I’m specifically focusing on system objects that might be interesting to script developers like you and I, dear reader. New stored procedure sp_get_table_card_est_and_avg_col_len – I assume the “card” refers to statistics and cardinality, not Hallmark. SQL Server has historically struggled with memory…

SQL Server 2014’s end of support date is coming in less than two years: July 9, 2024. I know that sounds far-off right now, but consider the work you have to do between now and then: Pick a new version to migrate to Set up development SQL Servers for that new version Start developing &…

I love how Microsoft treats deprecated and discontinued features in SQL Server. No, seriously. I give Microsoft a lot of sarcasm and lip around here, but Microsoft takes serious care to make it easy to upgrade versions without worrying about your application breaking. If you disagree, hear me out for a minute. “Discontinued” means it’s…

Last week, I challenged y’all to come up with slogans for SQL Server 2022. I have to confess that when I came up with the idea for that blog post, I thought y’all would take it seriously. I thought you’d come up with ideas that were meant to show off Microsoft’s hard work. I should…

Normally when y’all post questions here on Pollgab, I let ’em pile up and I eventually do an Office Hours webcast where I talk through my answers. I check in on the list every couple of days just out of curiosity, though, and one of ’em jumped right out at me. The question, posed by…