The year ahead for SQL Server: Ground to cloud to fabric
As we begin a new year in 2025, many of you are looking at new projects, new applications, trying to determine how to integrate AI into your business, modernizing your data estate, or considering an upgrade or a cloud migration. As you consider your options, let’s look at the state of the union in 2025 of Microsoft new releases and capabilities for SQL Server, Azure SQL, SQL database in Fabric, Copilots, tools, and developer experiences.
SQL Server 2025
In November 2024, we announced the next major release of SQL Server: SQL Server 2025.
SQL Server 2025, now in private preview, includes capabilities to build AI applications including vector and AI model management, on-premises or in the cloud. We continue to invest in security, performance, and availability. Another exciting area of investment in SQL Server 2025 are developer features such as a JSON type, RegEx, Change Event Streaming, and REST API support. Sign-up to work with us for the next release. I look forward in 2025 as we ship a public preview and the general availability of this exciting major release.
Here are a few resources where you can learn more about SQL Server 2025:
- Announcing SQL Server 2025.
- SQL Server 2025: an enterprise AI-ready database platform.
- DBA Virtual User Group presentation on SQL Server 2025.
SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc
Azure Arc could be one of the most underused capabilities associated with SQL Server. The concept is amazingly simple. Instead of running SQL Server in Azure (that would be SQL Server in Azure Virtual Machine), you connect your existing SQL Server to Azure, whether it is running on-premises or another public cloud. Imagine using the Azure Portal to find out answers to questions like “What dbcompat levels are used across all my SQL Server instances?” Azure Arc has many other capabilities to help you manage your SQL Server instances, but a few I think you should look at are Microsoft Entra Authentication, Azure Migration, PAYG licensing, and ESU updates. Learn how to get started with Azure Arc.
Azure SQL
It is incredible to think that Azure SQL Database was launched almost 15 years ago as SQL Azure. Today Azure SQL is a brand that offers you the ability to run SQL Server in a Virtual Machine, a managed SQL instance, or a contained database. Each of these deployment options has continued innovations to accelerate development, deployment, and performance. SQL Server in Azure Virtual Machine continues to be a great option to lift and shift SQL Server, keep up to date with it here, but let’s look further at other Azure SQL options.
Azure SQL Managed Instance
The biggest new capability is Next-generation General Purpose service tier. This new deployment option offers a higher level of resources, better price/performance, more granular control of input/output (I/O) performance, and 500 databases per instance. I look forward in the future to seeing this become generally available. Keep up to date with all the latest announcements.
Azure SQL Database
We announced so many great new capabilities throughout 2024 including but not limited to:
- Hyperscale Serverless and Elastic Pools.
- Hyperscale performance and availability enhancements.
- New developer features like a JSON data type (which is also available in all flavors of SQL).
It might be time for you to rethink Hyperscale. With its new pricing model, Serverless and replica capabilities, this can be a great option to start a new database deployment and have it autoscale per your needs. And do not forget to try out Azure SQL Database for free (not a trial). Keep up to date with all the latest announcements.
SQL database in Fabric
Microsoft Fabric is a unified data platform. Up until now, most of the capabilities in Fabric were more centered around analytics. Now there is an operational database built within the Fabric, and it uses SQL Server!
SQL database in Fabric brings the power of Azure SQL Database deeply integrated into the Fabric ecosystem. Using the same database engine as SQL Server and Azure SQL, SQL database in Fabric is both familiar and innovative. Deploy a database in seconds, build a new AI application easily within the Fabric platform with CI/CD and GraphQL built-in. And all are integrated within the Fabric user experience and platform.
- Check out our Ignite presentation.
- Watch the Data Exposed series.
- We have excellent documentation to get you started. I especially like this SQL feature comparison and decision guides for SQL and Fabric data stores.
- Learn more in our Microsoft Mechanics video.
There is much more coming in this calendar year for SQL database in Fabric. Give it a spin today with a free Fabric trial capacity.
Tools and Copilots
We made big investments in 2024 in our tools and will continue to do more in this calendar year, but the most significant announcements were the revival of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and new AI-assisted experiences.
SQL Server Management Studio
We accelerated the future investment of SSMS with enhancements to the latest release, SSMS 20. Proving that SSMS is back, we also announced a significant new preview release SSMS 21 which includes:
- A new shell based on the latest Visual Studio.
- New installer and update experience.
- Dark theme.
- 64bit support.
- Git support.
There is more to come in 2025 as we iterate on the current preview. Try out the new SSMS. In addition, we have a preview for a Copilot in SSMS.
AI-assistance in Azure SQL and SQL database in Fabric
We introduced an AI-assisted experience in the framework of Microsoft Copilot in Azure. Using your database context in the Azure Portal, you can type in prompts like, “my database is slow” and get fast and guided advice on performance troubleshooting scenarios. Try this out yourself. SQL Database in Fabric offers AI-assisted capabilities in the Query Editor and as a sidecar chat experience.
We believe AI-assisted capabilities can help both developers and administrators for SQL ground to cloud to fabric so we will continue to invest and innovate everywhere SQL exists in the future.
AI applications
The future of data-driven applications is to use AI. We believe the future is now, so we want to invest in capabilities inside the database engine to power your new AI applications, whether you are building retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) applications, chat-based applications, or AI agents. We also have a great solution outside of the SQL engine using Azure AI Search with SQL.
We believe SQL makes a compelling solution because you can build operational RAG applications using the security and scalability of the database engine using the familiarity of the T-SQL language. This includes access to AI models in Azure OpenAI, a new vector type, vector functions, and soon to be in the future vector search using vector indexes, built on the popular Microsoft vector indexing technology, DiskANN. SQL Server 2025 will include access to AI models on-premises or in the cloud. We also have solutions well integrated with frameworks like LangChain and Semantic Kernel.
Check out our demo at Microsoft Ignite to show AI applications for SQL everywhere they exist. Keep up with the latest for our AI application capabilities at intelligent applications, SQL AI samples, and this SQL AI workshop.
Fabric Mirroring
We have seen the rising popularity of Microsoft Fabric as a unified data platform. We want to be sure you can easily integrate your SQL data, wherever it exists, into Fabric. Therefore, we introduced the concept of Fabric Mirroring of Azure SQL Database. This provides a zero-ETL method to access your data separate from the operational database for near-real time analytics. This includes automatic changes fed into Fabric as you modify your source database and free Mirroring storage for replicas tiered to Fabric capacity. You can get started today for Azure SQL Database.
To ensure you can mirror any SQL database, we announced public preview for mirroring for Azure SQL Managed Instance and a private preview for SQL Server. You can also sign-up for the preview here.
Learn more at upcoming events
As you plan out the first few months of the year, consider these events where Microsoft and others from the community will teach you all of these new innovations.
VS Live Las Vegas 2025
This is one of the premier events focused on developers. Use the discount code WARD and register today.
Fabric Community Conference 2025
For the first time, the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference is putting SQL Server center stage. Join us at this incredible community event for a deep dive into SQL Databases in Fabric and get a preview of SQL Server 2025. The SQL Dream Team will be there. Shireesh Thota, Erin Stellato, Joe Sack, Muazma Zahid, Davide Mauri and I will be leading sessions. As well as SQL Community Legends – Denny Cherry, Grant Fritchey, Monica Rathbun, Anthony Nocentino, John Morehouse, Joey D’Antoni and more! Register with code MSCUST and get $150 off. Workshops sell out weeks in advance so save your spot now.
And we will be at more events in the upcoming calendar year. Here is to all our customers and community for a successful and momentous year in 2025 for SQL Server, from ground to cloud to fabric.
