Microsoft Ignite 2022 has started and is not disappointing with the announcements coming out. During the keynote this morning, Executive Vice President Scott Guthrie announced the private preview of the next major version for SQL Server. With this announcement, not all of the new enhancements and new feature details are publicly available, however some of the exciting features announced during this keynote are:
- Seamless and Managed Disaster Recovery using Azure SQL Managed Instance
- Near real-time analytics with Synapse Link
- Visibility and access controls with Azure Purview integration
- SQL Server Ledger
- Built-In query intelligence
- Multi-write replication with automatic conflict resolution
Azure SQL Managed Instance
As part of the announcement at Ignite improvements to Azure SQL Managed Instance by supporting migrations to Azure SQL Managed Instance with the use of distributed availability groups, which will assist with migrations by enabling near-zero-downtime for SQL Server database migrations. Additionally to this improvement, in SQL Server 2022 support will allow for databases in Azure SQL Managed Instance to be migrated back to on-premises via a database backup and restore.
Another improved feature announced is the introduction of Managed Instance Link, which provides unprecedented hybrid flexibility and database mobility. Using near-real-time replication allows for offloading workloads to read-only secondaries in Azure to take advantage of a fully managed platform. You can read more here – Managed Instance link – connecting SQL Server to Azure reimagined – Microsoft Tech Community
Synapse Link
Currently, if you are moving data from your on-premises SQL Server databases to Synapse requires the creation of ETL processes. This all changes with the introduction of Synapse Link for SQL Server 2022 by providing automatic change feeds that capture the changes within SQL Server and these changes into Synapse analytics providing the near real-time analysis and hybrid transactional and analytical processing with minimal impact on your operational systems.
Azure Purview Integration
With the recent announcement of Azure Purview becoming generally available as a unified governance and management service, SQL Server 2022 integrates with Azure Purview to provide greater data discovery allowing you to do things like:
- Automatically scan your on-premises for free to capture metadata
- Classify data using built-in and custom classifiers and Microsoft Information Protection sensitivity labels
- Set up and control specific access rights to SQL Server
SQL Server Ledger
Azure SQL Database ledger was introduced to assist with establishing trust around the integrity of data stored in various database systems. This feature provides tamper-evidence capabilities to attest to other parties, such as auditors that the data has not been tampered with. You can learn more about this feature here – Azure SQL Database ledger overview – Azure SQL Database | Microsoft Docs. With the announcement of SQL Server 2022, this feature is also included in the box product.
Built-in Query Intelligence
For the last couple of release, Microsoft have been enhancing query intelligence to provide increased performance and improved decisions around query plans. SQL Server 2022 takes this further again with the introduction of parameter sensitive plan optimizations
You can learn more about all of these announcements from Bob Ward (Principal Architect at Microsoft) in this video – What’s new in SQL Server 2022 – YouTube
Stay tuned for more updates on SQL Server 2022.
Reference material:
Preview: SQL Assessment for SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines – Microsoft Tech Community
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