Assess and upgrade to SQL Server 2025 with SSMS Migration Component
Upgrade to SQL Server 2025 with confidence. Starting with SSMS 22, the Hybrid & Migration component now includes upgrade assessment for SQL Server 2025. This feature enables you to quickly evaluate readiness for upgrade. SSMS also provides a streamlined migration path to the instance of higher version if in-place upgrade is not preferred.
Ollama on HTTPS for SQL Server
Here is a quick procedure to deploy an Ubuntu container with Ollama and expose its API over HTTPS. The goal is to allow a fast deployment, even for those unfamiliar with Docker or Language Models, making it easy to set up an offline platform for generating embeddings and using Small Language Models This is particularly useful when testing SQL Server 2025 for fully on-premises environment use cases, since SQL Server only allows access to HTTPS endpoints. However, HTTP remains open for testing purposes. Please note that this example is CPU-based, as deploying with (integrated) GPU support involves additional, less straightforward steps. This example is provided solely to illustrate the concept, is not intended for production use, and comes without any guarantee of performance or security. Prerequisites To continue, you need to have Docker Desktop, WSL and SQL Server 2025 (currently Release Candidate 1) Docker Desktop Install WSL | Microsoft Learn SQL Server 2025 Preview | Microsoft Evaluation Center Create a Dockerfile First, create a working directory. In this example, C:\Docker\Ollama will be used. Simply create a file named Dockerfile (without an extension) and paste the following content into it. FROM ubuntu:25.10 RUN apt update && apt install -y curl gnupg2 ca-certificates lsb-release apt-transport-https software-properties-common unzip nano openssl net-tools RUN curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | bash RUN curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/gpg.key' | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/caddy-stable-archive-keyring.gpg RUN curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/debian.deb.txt' | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/caddy-stable.list RUN apt update && apt install -y caddy RUN mkdir -p /etc/caddy/certs RUN cat > /etc/caddy/certs/san.cnf <<EOF [req] default_bits = 2048 prompt = no default_md = sha256 req_extensions = req_ext distinguished_name = dn [dn] CN = 127.0.0.1 [req_ext] subjectAltName = @alt_names [alt_names] IP.1 = 127.0.0.1 DNS.1 = localhost EOF RUN openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/caddy/certs/localhost.key -out /etc/caddy/certs/localhost.crt -config /etc/caddy/certs/san.cnf -extensions req_ext RUN echo "https://:443 {\n tls /etc/caddy/certs/localhost.crt /etc/caddy/certs/localhost.key\n reverse_proxy localhost:11434\n}" >> /etc/caddy/Caddyfile RUN echo "#!/bin/bash" > /usr/local/bin/entrypoint.sh && \ echo "set -e" >> /usr/local/bin/entrypoint.sh && \ echo "OLLAMA_HOST=0.0.0.0 ollama serve >> /var/log/ollama.log 2>&1 &" >> /usr/local/bin/entrypoint.sh && \ echo "caddy run --config /etc/caddy/Caddyfile --adapter caddyfile >> /var/log/caddy.log 2>&1 &" >> /usr/local/bin/entrypoint.sh && \ echo "tail -f /var/log/ollama.log /var/log/caddy.log" >> /usr/local/bin/entrypoint.sh && \ chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/entrypoint.sh ENTRYPOINT ["/usr/local/bin/entrypoint.sh"] For your information, this file allows the creation of an image based on Ubuntu 25.10 and includes: Ollama, for running the models Caddy, for the reverse proxy Creation of a certificate for the HTTPS endpoint on localhost Create the container After opening a Powershell terminal, execute the following commands: cd C:\Docker\Ollama #Build the image from the Dockerfile. docker build -t ollama-https . #Create a container based on the image ollama-https docker run --name ollama-https -d -it -p 443:443 -p 11434:11434 ollama-https #Copy the certificate created into the current Windows directory docker cp ollama-https:/etc/caddy/certs/localhost.crt . # Install the certificate in Trusted Root Certification Authorities Import-Certificate -FilePath "localhost.crt" -CertStoreLocation "Cert:\LocalMachine\Root" #Check Https (wget https://localhost).Content #Check Http (wget http://localhost:11434).Content Ollama is now running With a browser, connect to https://localhost Retrieve Models No model is retrieved when the image is created, as this depends on each use case, and for some models, the size can be substantial. Here’s a quick example for pulling an embedding model, Nomic, and a small language model, Phi3. Ollama Search docker exec ollama-https ollama pull nomic-embed-text docker exec ollama-https ollama pull phi3:mini A quick example with SQL Server 2025 A quick demonstration using the WideWorldImporters database (Wide World Importers sample database) use [master] GO ALTER DATABASE WideWorldImporters SET COMPATIBILITY_LEVEL = 170 WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE GO DBCC TRACEON(466, 474, 13981, -1) GO Note: With RC1, you can use the PREVIEW_FEATURES database-scoped configuration T-SQL Declare an external model for embeddings. use [WideWorldImporters] GO CREATE EXTERNAL MODEL NomicLocal AUTHORIZATION dbo WITH ( LOCATION = 'https://localhost/api/embed', API_FORMAT = 'ollama', MODEL_TYPE = EMBEDDINGS, MODEL = 'nomic-embed-text' ) to enable semantic search capabilities on StockItems, we will create a dedicated table to store embeddings (no chunking in this example) along with a vector index optimized for cosine similarity use [WideWorldImporters] GO CREATE TABLE [Warehouse].[StockItemsEmbedding](StockItemEmbeddingID int identity (1,1) PRIMARY KEY, StockItemId int, SearchDetails nvarchar(max), Embedding vector(768)) GO INSERT INTO [Warehouse].[StockItemsEmbedding] SELECT si.StockItemID, si.SearchDetails, AI_GENERATE_EMBEDDINGS(si.SearchDetails USE MODEL NomicLocal) /* Generate embeddings from declared external model */ FROM [Warehouse].[StockItems] si GO /* Check */ SELECT * FROM [Warehouse].[StockItemsEmbedding] GO CREATE VECTOR INDEX IXV_1 ON [Warehouse].[StockItemsEmbedding] (Embedding) WITH (METRIC = 'cosine', TYPE = 'DiskANN') GO /* User Input */ DECLARE @UserInput varchar(max) = 'Which product is best suited for shipping small items?' /* and Generate embeddings for user input */ DECLARE @UserInputV vector(768) = AI_GENERATE_EMBEDDINGS(@UserInput USE MODEL NomicLocal) DECLARE @ModelInput nvarchar(max) DECLARE Payload nvarchar(max) DECLARE Response nvarchar(max) /* Similarity Search on StockItems and Model Input creation*/ SELECT @ModelInput = STRING_AGG('ProductDetails: ' + sie.SearchDetails + 'UnitPrice: ' + CAST(si.UnitPrice AS nvarchar(max)), ' \n\n') FROM VECTOR_SEARCH( TABLE = [Warehouse].[StockItemsEmbedding] as sie, COLUMN = Embedding, SIMILAR_TO = @UserInputV, METRIC = 'cosine', TOP_N = 10 ) JOIN [Warehouse].[StockItems] si ON si.StockItemId = sie.StockItemId /* Generate payload for response generation */ SELECT = '{"model": "phi3:mini", "stream": false, "prompt":"You are acting as a customer advisor responsible for recommending the most suitable products based on customer needs, providing clear and personalized suggestions. Question : ' + @UserInput + '\n\nList of Items : ' + @ModelInput + '"}'; EXECUTE sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint @url = 'https://localhost/api/generate', @method = 'POST', = , @timeout = 230, = OUTPUT; PRINT JSON_VALUE(@response, '$.result.response') LangChain You can also have a try with LangChain. Same demo with a small difference, there is no vector index created on the vector store table. The table has been modified, but only for demonstration purposes. Reference: SQLServer | 🦜️🔗 LangChain # PREREQ #sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y unixodbc # sudo apt-get update # sudo apt-get install -y curl gnupg2 # curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add - # curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/debian/11/prod.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mssql-release.list # sudo apt-get update # sudo ACCEPT_EULA=Y apt-get install -y msodbcsql18 # pip3 install langchain langchain-sqlserver langchain-ollama langchain-community import pyodbc from langchain_sqlserver import SQLServer_VectorStore from langchain_ollama import OllamaEmbeddings from langchain_ollama import ChatOllama from langchain.schema import Document from langchain_community.vectorstores.utils import DistanceStrategy #Prompt for testing _USER_INPUT = 'Which product is best suited for shipping small items?' ############### Params ########################################## print("\033[93mSetting up variables...\033[0m") _SQL_DRIVER = "ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server" _SQL_SERVER = "localhost\\SQL2K25" _SQL_DATABASE = "WideWorldImporters" _SQL_USERNAME = "lc" _SQL_PASSWORD = "lc" _SQL_TRUST_CERT = "yes" _SQL_VECTOR_STORE_TABLE = "StockItem_VectorStore" # Table name for vector storage _MODIFY_TABLE_TO_USE_SQL_VECTOR_INDEX = True #As vector index not considered currently in langchain and structure does not match vector index requirements _CONNECTION_STRING = f"Driver={{{_SQL_DRIVER}}};Server={_SQL_SERVER};Database={_SQL_DATABASE};UID={_SQL_USERNAME};PWD={_SQL_PASSWORD};TrustServerCertificate={_SQL_TRUST_CERT}" _OLLAMA_API_URL = "https://localhost" _OLLAMA_EMBEDDING_MODEL = "nomic-embed-text:latest" _OLLAMA_EMBEDDING_VECTOR_SIZE = 768 _OLLAMA_SLM_MODEL = "phi3:mini" # Model for SLM queries ################################################################### #Define Ollama embeddings embeddings = OllamaEmbeddings( model=_OLLAMA_EMBEDDING_MODEL, base_url=_OLLAMA_API_URL ) conn = pyodbc.connect(_CONNECTION_STRING) cursor = conn.cursor() #Drop embeddings table if it exists print("\033[93mDropping existing vector store table if it exists...\033[0m") cursor.execute(f"DROP TABLE IF EXISTS Warehouse.{_SQL_VECTOR_STORE_TABLE};") print("\033[93mConnecting to SQL Server and fetching data...\033[0m") cursor.execute("SELECT StockItemId, SearchDetails, UnitPrice FROM Warehouse.StockItems;") rows = cursor.fetchall() print(f"\033[93mFound {len(rows)} records to process\033[0m") # Create documents from the fetched data documents = [ Document( page_content=row.SearchDetails, metadata={ "StockItemId": row.StockItemId, "UnitPrice": float(row.UnitPrice) # Convert Decimal to float } ) for row in rows ] conn.commit() #Creating vector store print("\033[93mCreating vector store...\033[0m") vector_store = SQLServer_VectorStore( connection_string=_CONNECTION_STRING, distance_strategy=DistanceStrategy.COSINE, # If not provided, defaults to COSINE embedding_function=embeddings, embedding_length=_OLLAMA_EMBEDDING_VECTOR_SIZE, db_schema = "Warehouse", table_name=_SQL_VECTOR_STORE_TABLE ) print("\033[93mAdding to vector store...\033[0m") try: vector_store.add_documents(documents) print("\033[93mSuccessfully added to vector store!\033[0m") except Exception as e: print(f"\033[91mError adding documents: {e}\033[0m") #Vector index not yet integrated in SQL Server VectorStore (drop auto-created nonclustered PK and generating int clustered PK if (_MODIFY_TABLE_TO_USE_SQL_VECTOR_INDEX): print("\033[93mModifying structure to create vector index...\033[0m") cursor.execute("DECLARE @AutoCreatedPK sysname, @SQL nvarchar(max);" f"SELECT @AutoCreatedPK = name FROM sys.key_constraints WHERE type = 'PK' AND parent_object_id = object_id('Warehouse.{_SQL_VECTOR_STORE_TABLE}');" f"SELECT @SQL = 'ALTER TABLE Warehouse.{_SQL_VECTOR_STORE_TABLE} DROP CONSTRAINT ' + @AutoCreatedPK + ';'" "EXEC sp_executesql @SQL;" f"ALTER TABLE Warehouse.{_SQL_VECTOR_STORE_TABLE} ADD Alt_Id int identity(1,1);" f"ALTER TABLE Warehouse.{_SQL_VECTOR_STORE_TABLE} ADD CONSTRAINT PK_{_SQL_VECTOR_STORE_TABLE} PRIMARY KEY (Alt_Id);") conn.commit() print("\033[93mCreating vector index...\033[0m") cursor.execute(f"CREATE VECTOR INDEX IV_{_SQL_VECTOR_STORE_TABLE} ON [Warehouse].[{_SQL_VECTOR_STORE_TABLE}] (embeddings) WITH (METRIC = 'cosine', TYPE = 'DiskANN');") conn.commit() #Generate prompt then answer print(f"\033[92mUser Input: {_USER_INPUT}\033[0m") context = [ { "Item": doc.page_content, "UnitPrice": doc.metadata.get("UnitPrice", None) } for doc in vector_store.similarity_search(_USER_INPUT, k=3) ] llm = ChatOllama(model=_OLLAMA_SLM_MODEL,base_url=_OLLAMA_API_URL) prompt = ( f"You are acting as a customer advisor responsible for recommending the most suitable products based on customer needs, providing clear and personalized suggestions" f"Context: {context}\n\nQuestion: {_USER_INPUT}\n\n") response = llm.invoke(prompt) print(f"\033[36m{response.content}\033[0m") Note : If using devcontainer with VSCode add "runArgs": [ "--network=host" ] to devcontainer.json to allow connections to “localhost”. Import and install the previously created certificat docker cp C:\Docker\Ollama\localhost.crt <devcontainer name>:/usr/local/share/ca-certificates/localhost.crt docker exec <devcontainer name> "update-ca-certificates" Disclaimer The sample scripts are not supported under any Microsoft standard support program or service. The sample scripts are provided AS IS without warranty of any kind. Microsoft further disclaims all implied warranties including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability or of fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk arising out of the use or performance of the sample scripts and documentation remains with you. In no event shall Microsoft, its authors, or anyone else involved in the creation, production, or delivery of the scripts be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, loss of business information, or other pecuniary loss) arising out of the use of or inability to use the sample scripts or documentation, even if Microsoft has been advised of the possibility of such damages.What's new in SQL Server 2025
Add deep AI integration with built-in vector search and DiskANN optimizations, plus native support for large object JSON and new Change Event Streaming for live data updates. Join and analyze data faster with the Lakehouse shortcuts in Microsoft Fabric that unify multiple databases — across different SQL Server versions, clouds, and on-prem — into a single, logical schema without moving data. Build intelligent apps, automate workflows, and unlock rich insights with Copilot and the unified Microsoft data platform, including seamless Microsoft Fabric integration, all while leveraging your existing SQL skills and infrastructure. Bob Ward, lead SQL engineer, joins Jeremy Chapman to share how the latest SQL Server 2025 innovations simplify building complex, high-performance workloads with less effort. Run natural language semantic search directly in SQL Server 2025. Vector search and DiskANN work efficiently on modest hardware — no GPU needed. Get started. Run NoSQL in SQL. Store and manage large JSON documents directly in SQL Server 2025. Insert, update, and query JSON data with native tools. Check it out. Avoid delays. Reduce database locking without code changes to keep your apps running smoothly. See the new Optimized Locking in SQL Server 2025. QUICK LINKS: 00:00 — Updates to SQL Server 2025 00:58 — Search and AI 03:55 — Native JSON Support 06:41 — Real-Time Change Event Streaming 08:40 — Optimized Locking for Better Concurrency 10:33 — Join SQL Server data with Fabric 13:53 — Wrap up Link References Start using SQL Server 2025 at https://aka.ms/GetSQLServer2025 Unfamiliar with Microsoft Mechanics? As Microsoft’s official video series for IT, you can watch and share valuable content and demos of current and upcoming tech from the people who build it at Microsoft. Subscribe to our YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicrosoftMechanicsSeries Talk with other IT Pros, join us on the Microsoft Tech Community: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-mechanics-blog/bg-p/MicrosoftMechanicsBlog Watch or listen from anywhere, subscribe to our podcast: https://microsoftmechanics.libsyn.com/podcast Keep getting this insider knowledge, join us on social: Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MSFTMechanics Share knowledge on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/microsoft-mechanics/ Enjoy us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/msftmechanics/ Loosen up with us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@msftmechanics Video Transcript: - Today we’ll look at the AI integration developer updates and performance improvements that make SQL Server 2025 a major upgrade. We’ve got a lot to unpack here, so we’re going to waste no time and get straight into this with lead SQL engineer, Bob Ward. Welcome back to the show. - So great to be back. - So SQL Server 2025, it’s brand new. It’s in public preview right now. So what’s behind the release and what’s new? - There are three major areas of updates that we focus on in this release. First, we have deep AI integration. For example, we now have built-in vector search support for more accurate and efficient data retrieval with some under the hood optimizations using DiskANN. Second, if you’re a developer, this is the most significant release of SQL in the last decade. You know, some of the highlights are native support for JSON files and new change event streaming capabilities for real-time updates. And the third area is improved analytics, where we’re going to make it easy to mirror your SQL Servers into Microsoft Fabric without moving the data. - And all of these are very significant updates. So why don’t we start with what’s new in search and AI? - Great, let’s get going. As I’ve mentioned, we’ve integrated AI directly into the database engine to give you smarter, intelligent searching. With vector search capabilities built-in, you can do semantic search over your data to find matches based on similarity versus keywords. For example, here I have a database with a table called ProductDescription, and I want to search using SQL queries against the Description table for intelligent search. Typically, you’d use full text search for this. Now I’ve built this out, but what about these natural language phrases, Will they work? They don’t. And even when I use like clauses, as you can see here, or contains, or even freetext, none of these methods returns what I’m looking for. Instead, this is where natural language with vector search in SQL Server 2025 shines. As a developer, I can get started even locally on my laptop, no GPU required. I’m using the popular framework, Ollama, to host a free open-source embeddings model from Hugging Face. This will convert our data into vectors, including query prompts, and I declare it using this CREATE EXTERNAL MODEL statement. Then I’m able to go in and build a table using the new built-in vector type to store what’s called embeddings in a binary format. My table has keys pointing back to my description data and then I can use a built-in T-SQL function to generate embeddings based on Ollama and store them. For vector search to work, I need to create a vector index, and it’s also performance optimized using Disk approximate nearest neighbor, or DiskANN, which is a new way to offload what you’d normally want to run completely in memory to point to an index stored on disk. I have a stored procedure to convert the query prompts into embeddings so it can be used to find matching embeddings in the vector index. So now I have everything running locally on my laptop running SQL. Let’s see how it works. I’ll try this natural language prompt, like I showed earlier. And it worked. I get a rich set of results, with matching information based on my search to find products in the database. And I can even use Copilot from here to explore more about SQL data. I’ll prompt it to look for my new table. And you can see, response here, finding our new table. And I can ask it to pull up a few embedding values with product names and descriptions. And as you saw the result using our open source embeddings returned a few languages back. And the good news is that if your data contains multiple languages, it’s easy to use different embedding models. For example, here I’ve wired up Azure OpenAI’s ADA 2 embeddings model optimized for multiple languages without even changing my code. And now I can even search using Mandarin Chinese and get back matching results. - And DiskANN and vector-based search are both massive updates that really go hand in hand to enable better natural language querying on modest hardware. So what about all the developer updates? - With these updates, things get so much more efficient for developers. With JSON file types, you can bring NoSQL into your SQL relational database. Let me show you how. I’ve created a database called Orders and a table called Orders. Notice here the new JSON data type, which can store up to a massive two gigabytes of JSON document in this native data type. Now let’s look at a couple of examples. First, I can easily insert JSON documents in their native format directly into the table, and I’ll show you some of the JSON functions that you can do to process this new JSON type. JSON value will pull a particular value out of a JSON document and bring it back in result set format. And I can just dump out all the JSON values, so each document will appear as a separate row in their native JSON format. But instead of just doing that, I have aggregate functions. This takes all the rows of JSON types in the table and produces a single array with a single JSON document with all the new rows in the native JSON type. Key-value pairs are also popular in JSON, and I can use the new OBJECT AGGREGATE function to take the order ID key and the JSON document and produce a set of key-value pairs. And I can modify the JSON type directly from here too. Notice, for order_id 1, the quantity is also 1. I’ll run this update to modify the value. And when it’s finished, the order_id, quantity has been updated with the value of 2 directly in the JSON. Now that’s a good example of using the JSON type. So let me show you how this works with a JSON index. I’ve got a different database for contacts, along with the table for contacts using a JSON document as one of the properties of the contacts table. I can create a JSON index on top of that JSON document, like this. Now I’ve got some sample data that are JSON documents. And in a second, I’m going to push those into our database. And as I scroll, you’ll that this has nested tags as properties in the JSON document. Now I’ll run the query so I can insert these rows with the names of each tag. Let’s go look at the output. I’m using JSON value for the name, but I’m using JSON query because the tags are nested. Now I’ll show you an example searching with the JSON index. I’m using the new JSON contains function to find tags called fitness that are deep nested in the JSON document. And I can run that and find the right tags and even the execution plan. You can see here that it shows we’re using the new JSON index to help go find that information. - That’s a big deal. And like you said, there’s a lot happening natively in JSON, and now you’ve got the benefits of SQL for joins, and security, and a lot more, - You know, and for developers who use change data capture, things become a lot easier with change event streaming. Here, we’re reducing I/O overhead and sending transaction log changes directly to your application. To get started with change event streaming for our orders database, I’ll run the stored procedure to enable streaming for the database. You can see the table we’re going to use to track changes is a typical type of orders table. Here I’ve created what’s called an event stream group. This is where I’ve configured event streaming to tell it the location of our Azure event hub to stream our data, and I’ve added my credentials. Then I’ve configured the table orders to be part of the event streaming group. I’ve run these procedures to make sure that my configuration is correct. So let’s do something interesting. I’m going to automate a workflow using agents to listen for changes as they come in and try to resolve any issues. First, I’ve created an Azure function app, and using my function app, I have an agent running in the Azure AI service called ContosoShippingAgent. It’s built to take shipment information, analyze it, and decide whether something can be done to help. For example, resolving a shipping delay. I’ve started my Azure function. This function is waiting for events to be sent to Azure Event Hub in order to process them. Now, in SQL, I’ll insert a new order. Going back over to my Azure function, you’ll see how the event is processed. In the code, first, we’re dumping up the raw cloud event that I showed earlier. Notice the operation is an insert. It’s going to dump out some of the different fields we’ve parsed out of the data, the column names, the metadata, and then the row itself. Notice that because the shipment is 75 days greater than our sales date, it will call our agent. The agent then comes back with a response. It looked at the tracking details and determined that it can change the shipping provider to expedite our delayed shipment, and it contacted the customer directly with the updating shipping info. - And everybody likes faster shipping. So speaking of things that are getting faster, it’s kind of a tradition on Mechanics that we cover the speed ups for SQL Server. So what are the speed ups and the performance optimizations for ‘25? - Well, there’s a lot, but my favorite one improves application concurrency. We’ve improved the internals of how locking works without application code changes. And I’ve got an example of this running. I have a lock escalation problem that I need to resolve. I’m going to go update about 2,500 rows in this table just to show what happens, then how we’ve solved for it. So running this query against that Dynamic Management View, or DMV, shows locks that have accumulated, about 2,500 locks here for key-value locks and 111 for page locks. So what happens if I run enough updates against the table that would cause a lock escalation? Here, I’ll update 10,000 rows in the system. But you can see with the locks that this has been escalated to an object lock. It’s not updating the entire table, but it’s going to cause a problem. Because I’ve got a query over here that can update the maximum value in just one row and it’s going to get blocked, but it shouldn’t have to be. You can see here from the blocking query that’s running that it’s blocked on that original session, and I’m not actually updating a row that’s affected by the first one. This is the problem with lock escalation. Now let’s look at a new option called optimized locking in SQL Server 2025. Okay, let’s go back to where I updated 10,000 rows and look at the lock. Notice how in this particular case I have a transaction lock. It’s an intent exclusive lock for the table, but only a transaction lock for that update. If I use this query to update the max, you’ll see that we are not blocked. And by looking at the locks, each item has specific transaction locks, so we’re not blocking each other. And related to this, we’ve also solved another problem where two unrelated updates can get blocked. We call this lock after qualification. - Okay, so it’s pinpointing the exact lock type, so you’ll get less locks in the end. So why don’t we move on though from locks to joins? - Sure. With Microsoft Fabric, it’s amazing. You can pull in multiple databases, multiple data types into a unified data platform. Imagine you have two different SQL Servers in different clouds and on-prem, and you just want to join this data together in an easy way without migrating it. With Fabric, you can. I have a SQL Server 2022 instance with a database, and we’ve already mirrored the product tables from that database into Fabric. I’ll show you the mirroring configuration process for a SQL Server 2025 instance with different, but related tables. These are similar to the steps from mirroring any SQL Server. I’ve created a database connection for SQL Server 2025. Now I’ll pick all the tables in our database and connect. I’ll leave the name as is, AdventureWorks, and we’re ready to mirror our database. You can see now that the replication process has started for all the tables. All the rows have been replicated for all the columns on all the tables in my database and they’ve been mirrored into Fabric. Now let’s query the data using the SQL analytic endpoint. And you can see that the tables that we have previously had in our database and SQL Server are now mirrored into OneLake. Let’s run a query and I’ll use Copilot to do that. Here’s the Copilot code with explanations. Now I’ll run it. And as it completes, there’s our top customers buy sales. Now what if we wanted to do a join across the other SQL server? It’s possible. But normally, there are a lot of manual pieces to do this. Fabric can make that easier using a lakehouse. So let’s create a new lakehouse. I just didn’t to give it a name, AdventureWorks, and confirm. Now notice there are no tables in this lakehouse yet, so let’s add some. And for that, I’ll use a shortcut. A shortcut uses items in OneLake, like the SQL Server databases we just mirrored. So I’ll add the AdventureWorks database. And scrolling down, I’ll pick all the tables I want. Now I’ll create it. And we’re not storing the data separately in the lakehouse. It’s just a shortcut, like an active read link to the source data, which is our mirrored database, and therefore something that already exists in OneLake. And now you can see I’ve got these objects here. This icon means that these are shortcut from another table. So now, let’s get data from another warehouse. The SQL Server 2022 instance, which was ADW_products. Again, here, I’ll pick the tables that I want and Create. That’s it. So I can go and look at product to make sure I’ve got my product data. Now, let’s try to query this as one database and use another analytic endpoint directly against the lakehouse itself. So basically it thinks all the tables are just part of the unified schema now. Let’s open up Copilot and write a prompt to pull my top customers by products and sales. And it will be able to work directly against all of these connected databases because they are in just the same schema. And there you go. I have a list of all the data I need in one logical database. - And this is really great. And I know now that everything’s in OneLake, there’s also a lot more that you can do with that data. - With the lakehouse, the sky’s the limit. You can use Power BI, or any of those services that are in the unified data platform, Microsoft Fabric. - Okay, so now we’ve seen all the updates with SQL Server 2025. To everyone watching, what’s the best thing they can do to get started? - Well, the first thing is to start using it. SQL Server 2025 is ready for you to download and install it on the platform of your choice. You’ll find it at aka.ms/GetSQLServer2025. - So thanks so much for sharing all the updates, Bob, and thank you for joining us today. Be sure to subscribe for more, and we’ll see again soon.TLS 1.3 in SQL Server 2025: What It Really Changes for Security
Why TLS 1.3 matters TLS (Transport Layer Security) is the protocol that encrypts traffic between clients and servers. For many years, most SQL Server environments have relied on TLS 1.2, which dates back to 2008. TLS 1.3, finalized in 2018, is a significant evolution. It brings three main benefits: Better performance With fewer roundtrips and faster negotiation, secure connections are established much more quickly in practice Stronger security Old and weak algorithms are removed (RC4, SHA1, MD5, DES, 3DES…) Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) is mandatory. Even if a private key is compromised later, past sessions remain protected Simpler cipher suites: less configuration complexity, fewer chances to misconfigure Easier compliance Recommended by NIST Strongly encouraged by PCIDSS 4.0 Fewer exceptions to justify during audits What SQL Server 2025 adds SQL Server 2022 introduced TLS 1.3 through the new TDS 8.0 (Tabular Data Stream) protocol. And SQL Server 2025 makes it broadly usable across the SQL Server ecosystem, this is not limited to client connections only. Components that can use TLS 1.3 Client connections (ODBC, OLE DB, .NET) SQL Server Agent bcp utility sqlcmd utility Always On Availability Groups Always On Failover Cluster Instances Log Shipping Transactional replication Merge replication Peer-to-peer replication Snapshot replication Linked Servers PolyBase SQL Writer Service Prerequisites Valid certificates on all endpoints Selfsigned certificates are acceptable for testing In production, use certificates from a trusted CA or an internal PKI Updated drivers ODBC Driver 18+ for SQL Server OLE DB Driver 19+ for SQL Server Microsoft.Data.SqlClient 5.0+ Older drivers will either fall back to older TLS versions or fail to connect SQL Server configuration You can enforce encryption on all connections (Force Encryption) You can configure TDS 8.0 as the minimum protocol version (Force Strict Encryption) How Copilot can help I'm setting up log shipping between two SQL Server 2025 instances with TLS 1.3 enabled. What certificate requirements should I verify ? The MSSQL extension with GitHub Copilot can assist you when planning and rolling out TLS 1.3. Auditing the current state Analyze my current SQL Server encryption configuration. What TLS version are my connections using ? Are there any connections using deprecated protocols ? Copilot can generate and explain the queries that inspect the relevant DMVs and interpret the results. Generating configuration scripts Generate a script to configure SQL Server 2025 to require TLS 1.3 for all incoming connections, including the certificate configuration steps. Diagnosing compatibility issues My application fails to connect after enabling TDS 8.0. The error mentions "SSL Provider". What should I check and how do I fix it ? Reviewing linked servers Review my linked server configurations and identify which onesmight have issues with TLS 1.3 requirements. Documenting the changes Generate documentation for our security team explainingthe TLS configuration changes we're implementing for PCI-DSS compliance. It is possible that the AI generated content is incorrect. You remain responsible for reviewing, validating, and approving it before any use. Do not rely on this output without thorough human verification. Not intended for production use. Things to watch out for Linked Servers to legacy systems You may have linked servers that point to: Older SQL Server versions (2016 and earlier) ODBC sources that do not support TLS 1.2/1.3 Thirdparty servers with outdated TLS stacks If you enforce TLS 1.3 everywhere, these connections can fail. Possible approaches: Upgrade the remote systems Use temporary exceptions (not recommended longterm in production) Introduce a proxy or gateway that can handle protocol translation Replication to older versions Transactional or merge replication to subscribers running SQL Server 2019 or earlier may require mixed configurations. Legacy applications Applications using: .NET Framework with older System.Data.SqlClient versions Old ODBC/OLE DB drivers Thirdparty tools that are not updated may need to be upgraded or reconfigured before you enforce TLS 1.3. Suggested deployment strategy These steps are indicative; adapt them to your environment and change management process. Phase 1: Audit Inventory all inbound and outbound connections Identify client types and driver versions Document linked servers and replication paths Phase 2: Testing Enable TLS 1.3 in a staging or preproduction environment Test all critical applications and administrative tools Identify and resolve compatibility issues Phase 3: Progressive rollout Enable TLS 1.3 as an option without forcing it Monitor which connections still negotiate older TLS versions Once all key systems are compatible, enforce TLS 1.3 References TDS 8.0 - SQL Server Configure TLS 1.3 on SQL Server 2022 and later - SQL Server Encrypt Connections by Importing a Certificate - SQL Server Database Engine: Breaking Changes - SQL Server 2025 Certificate Requirements for SQL Server - SQL Server
SQL Server 2025 – Native JSON Size Limit?
Hi Guys, I am exploring SQL Server 2025 to store JSON documents using the native JSON data type. I have gone through several Microsoft SQL technical documents but couldn’t find the maximum size of the native JSON data type. I believe it hasn’t been officially published yet. Does anyone have any insights? Thanks, TusharManaged Identity on SQL Server On-Prem: The End of Stored Secrets
The Problem with Credentials in SQL Server For an On-Premises SQL Server to access Azure services, you traditionally need to store secrets: Common Scenarios Requiring Credentials Scenario Required Credential Backup to URL (Azure Blob) Storage account key or SAS token Extensible Key Management (Azure Key Vault) Service principal + secret Calling Azure OpenAI from T-SQL API key PolyBase to Azure Data Lake Service principal or key Associated Risks Manual Rotation Secrets expire. You need to plan and execute rotation and not forget to update all references. Secure Storage Where to store these secrets? In SQL Server via CREATE CREDENTIAL? In a config file? Each option has its risks. Attack Surface A compromised secret gives access to associated Azure resources. The more secrets you have, the larger the attack surface. Complex Auditing Who has access to these secrets? When were they used? Tracking is difficult. The Solution: Azure Arc + Managed Identity SQL Server 2025 connected to Azure Arc can geta Managed Identity : This identity: Is managed by Microsoft Entra ID Has no secret to store or rotate Can receive RBAC permissions on Azure resources Is centrally audited in Entra ID How It Works SQL Server 2025 On-Prem Azure Arc Agent installed on the server Managed Identity (automatically created in Entra ID) RBAC assignment on Azure resources -free access to Blob Storage, Key Vault, etc Step-by-Step Configuration Step 1: Enable Azure Arc on the Server and/or Register SQL Server in Azure Arc Follow the procedure describes in this article to onboard your server in Azure Arc. Connect Your SQL Server to Azure Arc Remember that you can also evaluate Azure Arc on a Azure VM (test use only) How to evaluate Azure Arc-enabled servers with an Azure virtual machine Step 2: Retrieve the Managed Identity The Managed Identity can be enabled and retrieved from Azure Arc | SQL Servers > “SQL Server instance” > Settings > Microsoft Entra ID Note: The Managed Identity is server-wide (not at the instance level) Step 3: Assign RBAC Roles Granting access to a Storage Account for backups $sqlServerId = (az resource show --resource-group "MyRG" --name "ServerName" --resource-type "Microsoft.HybridCompute/machines" --query identity.principalId -o tsv) az role assignment create --role "Storage Blob Data Contributor" ` --assignee-object-id $sqlServerId ` --scope "/subscriptions/xxx/resourceGroups/MyRG/providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/mybackupaccount" Ex: Backup to URL Without Credential Before (with SAS token) -- Create a credential with a SAS token (expires, must be rotated) CREATE CREDENTIAL [https://mybackup.blob.core.windows.net/backups] WITH IDENTITY = 'SHARED ACCESS SIGNATURE', SECRET = 'sv=2022-11-02&ss=b&srt=sco&sp=rwdlacup...' BACKUP DATABASE [MyDB] TO URL = 'https://mybackup.blob.core.windows.net/backups/MyDB.bak' WITH COMPRESSION After (with Managed Identity --No secret anymore CREATE CREDENTIAL [https://mybackup.blob.core.windows.net/backups] WITH IDENTITY = 'Managed Identity' BACKUP DATABASE [MyDB] TO URL = 'https://mybackup.blob.core.windows.net/backups/MyDB.bak' WITH COMPRESSION Extensible Key Management with Key Vault EKM Configuration with Managed Identity CREATE CREDENTIAL [MyAKV.vault.azure.net] WITH IDENTITY = 'Managed Identity' FOR CRYPTOGRAPHIC PROVIDER AzureKeyVault_EKM_Prov; How Copilot Can Help Infrastructure Configuration Walk me through setting up Azure Arc for SQL Server 2025 to use Managed Identity for backups to Azure Blob Storage @mssql Generate the PowerShell commands to register my SQL Server with Azure Arc and configure RBAC for Key Vault access Identify Existing Credentials to Migrate List all credentials in my SQL Server that use SHARED ACCESS SIGNATURE or contain secrets, so I can plan migration to Managed Identity Migration Scripts I have backup jobs using SAS token credentials. Generate a migration script to convert them to use Managed Identity Troubleshooting My backup WITH MANAGED_IDENTITY fails with "Authorization failed". What are the steps to diagnose RBAC permission issues? @mssql The Azure Arc agent shows "Disconnected" status. How do I troubleshoot connectivity and re-register the server? Audit and Compliance Generate a report showing all Azure resources my SQL Server's Managed Identity has access to, with their RBAC role assignments Prerequisites and Limitations Prerequisites Azure Arc agent installed and connected SQL Server 2025, running on Windows Azure Extension for SQL Server. Current Limitations Failover cluster instances isn't supported. Disabling not recommended Only system-assigned managed identities are supported FIDO2 method not currently supported Azure public cloud access required Documentation Overview Managed identity overview Set Up Managed Identity and Microsoft Entra Authentication for SQL Server Enabled by Azure Arc Set up Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) Extensible Key Management with Azure Key Vault
