Read the 2025 recap of all the SQL Server, Azure SQL and SQL database in Fabric news this year! Find all the Data Exposed and SQL videos at https://aka.ms/AzureSQLYT
What a year 2025 has been for SQL! ICYMI and are looking for some hype, might I recommend you start with this blog from Priya Sathy, the product leader for all of SQL at Microsoft: One consistent SQL: The launchpad from legacy to innovation. In this blog post, Priya explains how we have developed and continue to develop one consistent SQL which “unifies your data estate, bringing platform consistency, performance at scale, advanced security, and AI-ready tools together in one seamless experience and creates one home for your SQL workloads in the era of AI.”
For the FIFTH(!!) year in a row (my heart is warm with the number, I love SQL and #SQLfamily, and time is flying), I am sharing my annual Year in Review blog with all the SQL Server, Azure SQL and SQL database in Fabric news this year. Of course, you can catch weekly episodes related to what’s new and diving deeper on the Azure SQL YouTube channel at aka.ms/AzureSQLYT. This year, in addition to Data Exposed (52 new episodes and over 70K views!). We saw many new series related to areas like GitHub Copilot, SSMS, VS Code, and Azure SQL Managed Instance land in the channel, in addition to Data Exposed.
Microsoft Ignite announcements
Of course, if you’re looking for the latest announcements from Microsoft Ignite, Bob Ward and I compiled this slide of highlights.
Comprehensive list of 2025 updates
You can read this blog (or use AI to reference it later) to get all the updates and references from the year (so much happened at Ignite but before it too!). Here’s all the updates from the year:
SQL Server, Arc-enabled SQL Server, and SQL Server on Azure VMs
Generally Available
- SQL Server 2025 is Now Generally Available
- Backup/Restore capabilities in SQL Server 2025
- SQL Server 2025: Deeply Integrated and Feature-rich on Linux
- Resource Governor for Standard Edition
- Reimagining Data Excellence: SQL Server 2025 Accelerated by Pure Storage
- Security Update for SQL Server 2022 RTM CU21
- Cumulative Update #22 for SQL Server 2022 RTM
- Backup/Restore enhancements in SQL Server 2025
- Unified configuration and governance
- Expanding Azure Arc for Hybrid and Multicloud Management
- US Government Virginia region support
- I/O Analysis for SQL Server on Azure VMs
- NVIDIA Nemotron RAG Integration
Preview
Migrations
Generally Available
- SQL Server migration in Azure Arc
- Azure Database Migration Service Hub Experience
- SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) v10.3, including Db2 SKU recommendation (preview)
- Database Migration Service: PowerShell, Azure CLI, and Python SDK
- SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) v10.4, including SQL Server 2025 support, Oracle conversion Copilot
- Schema migration support in Azure Database Migration Service
Preview
Azure SQL Managed Instance
Generally Available
- Next-gen General Purpose Service Tier
- Improved connectivity types in Azure SQL Managed Instance
- Improved resiliency with zone redundancy for general purpose, improved log rate for business critical
- Apply reservation discount for zone redundant Business Critical databases
- Free offer
- Windows principals use to simplify migrations
- Data exfiltration improvements
Preview
Azure SQL Database
Generally Available
- LTR Backup Immutability
- Free Azure SQL Database Offer updates
- Move to Hyperscale while preserving existing geo-replication or failover group settings
- Improve redirect connection type to require only port 1433 and promote to default
- Bigint support in DATEADD for extended range calculations
- Restart your database from the Azure portal
- Replication lag metric
- Enhanced server audit and server audit action groups
- Read-access geo-zone redundant storage (RA-GZRS) as a backup storage type for non-Hyperscale
- Improved cutover experience to Hyperscale
- SLA-compliant availability metric
- Use database shrink to reduced allocated space for Hyperscale databases
- Identify causes of auto-resuming serverless workloads
Preview
- Multiple geo-replicas for Azure SQL Hyperscale
- Backup immutability for Azure SQL Database LTR backups
Updates across SQL Server, Azure SQL and Fabric SQL database
Generally Available
- Regex Support and fuzzy-string matching
- Geo-replication and Transparent Data Encryption key management
- Optimized locking v2
- Azure SQL hub in the Azure portal
- UNISTR intrinsic function and ANSI SQL concatenation operator (||)
- New vector data type
- JSON index
- JSON data type and aggregates
Preview
- Stream data to Azure Event Hubs with Change Event Streaming (Azure SQL DB Public Preview/Fabric SQL Private Preview)
- DiskANN vector indexing
SQL database in Microsoft Fabric and Mirroring
Generally Available
- Fabric Databases
- SQL database in Fabric
- Unlocking Enterprise ready SQL database in Microsoft Fabric: ALM improvements, Backup customizations and retention, Copilot enhancements & more update details
- Mirroring for SQL Server
- Mirroring for Azure SQL Managed Instance in Microsoft Fabric
- Connect to your SQL database in Fabric using Python Notebook
- Updates to database development tools for SQL database in Fabric
- Using Fast Copy for data ingestion
- Copilot for SQL analytics endpoint
- Any updates across Microsoft Fabric that apply to the SQL analytics endpoint are generally supported in mirrored databases and Fabric SQL databases via the SQL analytics endpoint. This includes many exciting areas, like Data Agents. See the Fabric blog to get inspired
Preview
- Data virtualization support
- Workspace level Private Link support (Private Preview)
- Customer-managed keys in Fabric SQL Database
- Auditing for Fabric SQL Database
- Fabric CLI: Create a SQL database in Fabric
- SQL database workload in Fabric with Terraform
- Spark Connector for SQL databases
Tools and developer
- Blog to Read: How the Microsoft SQL team is investing in SQL tools and experiences
- SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 22.1
- GitHub Copilot Walkthrough (Preview): Guided onboarding from the Copilot badge.
- Copilot right-click actions (Preview): Document, Explain, Fix, and Optimize.
- Bring your own model (BYOM) support in Copilot (Preview).
- Copilot performance: improved response time after the first prompt in a thread.
- Fixes: addressed Copilot “Run ValidateGeneratedTSQL” loop and other stability issues.
- SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 22
- Support for SQL Server 2025
- Modern connection dialog as default + Fabric browsing on the Browse tab.
- Windows Arm64 support (initial) for core scenarios (connect + query).
- GitHub Copilot in SSMS (Preview) is available via the AI Assistance workload in the VS Installer.
- T-SQL/UX improvements: open execution plan in new tab, JSON viewer, results grid zooms.
- New index support: create JSON and Vector indexes from Object Explorer
- SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 21
- Installation and automatic updates via Visual Studio Installer.
- Workloads/components model: smaller footprint + customizable install.
- Git integration is available via the Code tools workload.
- Modern connection dialog experience (Preview).
- New customization options (e.g., vertical tabs, tab coloring, results in grid NULL styling).
- Always Encrypted Assessment in the Always Encrypted Wizard.
- Migration assistance via the Hybrid and Migration workload.
- mssql-python Driver
- ODBC: Microsoft ODBC Driver 18.5.2.1 for SQL Server
- OLE DB: Microsoft OLE DB Driver 19.4.1 for SQL Server
- JDBC (latest train): Microsoft JDBC Driver for SQL Server 13.2.1
- Also updated in 2025: supported JDBC branches received multiple servicing updates (including Oct 13, 2025, security fixes). See the same JDBC release notes for the full list.
- .NET: Microsoft.Data.SqlClient 6.0.2
- Related - some notes on drivers released/updated in 2025 (recap):
- MSSQL extension for VS Code 1.37.0
- GitHub Copilot integration : Ask/Agent modes, slash commands, onboarding.
- Edit Data : interactive grid for editing table data (requires mssql.enableExperimentalFeatures: true).
- Data-tier Application dialog : deploy/extract .dacpac and import/export .bacpac (requires mssql.enableExperimentalFeatures: true).
- Publish SQL Project dialog : deploy .sqlproj to an existing DB or a local SQL dev container.
- Added “What’s New” panel + improved query results grid stability/accessibility.
- MSSQL extension for VS Code 1.36.0
- Fabric connectivity : browse Fabric workspaces and connect to SQL DBs / SQL analytics endpoints.
- SQL database in Fabric provisioning : create Fabric SQL databases from Deployments.
- GitHub Copilot slash commands : connection, schema exploration, query tasks.
- Schema Compare extensibility: new run command for external extensions/SQL Projects (incl. Update Project from Database support).
- Query results in performance/reliability improvements (incremental streaming, fewer freezes, better settings handling).
- SqlPackage 170.0.94 release notes (April 2025)
- Vector: support for vector data type in Azure SQL Database target platform (import/export/extract/deploy/build).
- SQL projects: default compatibility level for Azure SQL Database and SQL database in Fabric set to 170.
- Parquet: expanded supported types (including json, xml, and vector) + bcp fallback for unsupported types.
- Extract: unpack a .dacpac to a folder via /Action:Extract.
- Platform: Remove .NET 6 support; .NET Framework build updated to 4.7.2.
- SqlPackage 170.1.61 release notes (July 2025)
- Data virtualization (Azure SQL DB): added support for data virtualization objects in import/export/extract/publish.
- Deployment: new publishing properties /p:IgnorePreDeployScript and /p:IgnorePostDeployScript.
- Permissions: support for ALTER ANY EXTERNAL MIRROR (Azure SQL DB + SQL database in Fabric) for exporting mirrored tables.
- SQL Server 2025 permissions: support for CREATE ANY EXTERNAL MODEL, ALTER ANY EXTERNAL MODEL, and ALTER ANY INFORMATION PROTECTION.
- Fixes: improved Fabric compatibility (e.g., avoid deploying unsupported server objects; fixes for Fabric extraction scripting).
- SqlPackage 170.2.70 release notes (October 2025)
- External models: support for external models in Azure SQL Database and SQL Server 2025.
- AI functions: support for AI_GENERATE_CHUNKS and AI_GENERATE_EMBEDDINGS.
- JSON: support for JSON indexes + functions JSON_ARRAYAGG, JSON_OBJECTAGG, JSON_QUERY.
- Vector: vector indexes + VECTOR_SEARCH and expanded vector support for SQL Server 2025.
- Regex: support for REGEXP_LIKE.
- Microsoft.Build.Sql 1.0.0 (SQL database projects SDK)
- Breaking: .NET 8 SDK required for dotnet build (Visual Studio build unchanged).
- Globalization support.
- Improved SDK/Templates docs (more detailed README + release notes links).
- Code analyzer template defaults DevelopmentDependency.
- Build validation: check for duplicate build items.
- Microsoft.Build.Sql 2.0.0 (SQL database projects SDK)
- Added SQL Server 2025 target platform (Sql170DatabaseSchemaProvider).
- Updated DacFx version to 170.2.70.
- .NET SDK targets imported by default (includes newer .NET build features/fixes; avoids full rebuilds with no changes
- Azure Data Studio retirement announcement (retirement February 28, 2026)
Anna’s Pick of the Month Year
It’s hard to pick a highlight representative of the whole year, so I’ll take the cheesy way out: people. I get to work with great people working on a great set of products for great people (like you) solving real world problems for people. So, thank YOU and you’re my pick of the year 🧀
Until next time…
That’s it for now! We release new episodes on Thursdays and new #MVPTuesday episodes on the last Tuesday of every month at aka.ms/azuresqlyt. The team has been producing a lot more video content outside of Data Exposed, which you can find at that link too!
Having trouble keeping up? Be sure to follow us on twitter to get the latest updates on everything, @AzureSQL. And if you lose this blog, just remember aka.ms/newsupdate2025
We hope to see you next YEAR, on Data Exposed!
--Anna and Marisa
Microsoft