SQL Server 2025 is Generally Available

There were a lot of database announcements at Microsoft Ignite which continues to broaden the scope and offerings available. 

The general availability of the next version of SQL Server, SQL Server  2025 was announced. This new version continues to offer best in class security and performance. It is built for AI, made for developers and offer cloud agility through Azure. 

SQL Server 2025 is Now Generally Available

The product just continues to grow.  

The platform architecture

with these editions

Other database announcements: 

Azure DocumentDB (GA)

Azure DocumentDB offers AI-ready data, open standards, and multi-cloud deployment. It is a fully managed NoSQL service built on open-source tech and designed for hybrid and multicloud flexibility. It supports advanced search and vector embeddings for more accurate results and is compatible with popular open-source MongoDB drivers and tools.

Azure HorizonDB (Preview)

Azure HorizonDB is a new fully managed PostgreSQL database service.  It runs up to three times faster than open-source PostgreSQL and grows to handle demanding storage requirements with up to 15 replicas running on auto-scaling shared storage.

SQL Database in Fabric (GA)

SQL Database in Fabric bridges the gap between transactional and analytical workloads, enabling scenarios, where data is instantly available for both operational use and analytics, without performance trade-offs or complex ETL pipelines.

Database mirroring in Microsoft Fabric (GA)

The General Availability (GA) of mirroring for Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and Cosmos DB. Mirroring for SQL Server 2025 (on-premises or on VMs) was announced as being in Preview. 

Fabric November 2025 Feature Summary | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft introduced ecosystem interoperability as a cornerstone of its AI and data strategy. It enables organizations to connect and analyze data across platforms without moving or duplicating it, thus preserving governance, reducing cost, and accelerating insights. It unlocks data estates for AI models to train on live ,governed data, provides business users access insights without waiting for ETL pipelines, as well as reducing complexity for enterprises and cost while improving compliance.

The Key Components Explained

Zero-Copy Integrations

These allow data to be accessed and shared across systems without physically copying it. This is crucial for:

• Security: Data remains in its original location.
• Efficiency: No duplication means lower storage and compute costs.
• Governance: Original data lineage and controls are preserved.

SAP BDC (Business Data Cloud)

Microsoft Fabric now supports bi-directional zero-copy sharing with SAP BDC, giving instant access to semantically rich SAP data for analytics and AI.

Salesforce Data Cloud

Microsoft joins Salesforce’s Zero Copy Partner Network, enabling secure, bidirectional zero-copy integration with platforms like Databricks, Snowflake, and now Microsoft Fabric.

Azure Databricks and Snowflake

Expanded support means these platforms can now participate in zero-copy sharing with Microsoft Fabric, enabling unified analytics across cloud ecosystems.

dbt Jobs in Fabric (Preview)

dbt (data build tool) is now integrated into Fabric, allowing teams to run transformation workflows directly within Microsoft’s unified data platform. This streamlines development and governance for analytics engineers.

Azure at Microsoft Ignite 2025: All the intelligent cloud news explained | Microsoft Azure Blog

Azure Application Architecture Guide

I came across this useful guide. It presents a structured approach for designing applications on Azure that can scale, are resilient, and highly available. It is based on proven practices that Microsoft have learned from customer engagements.

Azure Cosmos DB

Another database annoucment today from Microsoft. The first globally distributed, multi-model database service. Microsoft describe Azure Cosmos DB as containing a write optimized, resource governed, schema-agnostic database engine that natively supports multiple data models: key-value, documents, graphs, and columnar.

Azure Cosmos DB is an evolutionary leap for DocumentDB which states it contains APIs for accessing data including MongoDB, DocumentDB SQL, Gremlin (preview), and Azure Tables (preview).

Azure Cosmos DB contains a write optimized, resource governed, schema-agnostic database engine that natively supports multiple data models: key-value, documents, graphs, and columnar. 

The Key Capabilities

• Turnkey global distribution
• Multiple data models and popular APIs for accessing and querying data
• Elastically scale throughput and storage on demand, worldwide
• Build highly responsive and mission-critical applications
• Ensure "always on" availability
• Write globally distributed applications, the right way
• Money back guarantees
• No database schema/index management
• Low cost of ownership

Microsoft DataAmp – SQL Server 2017

The DataAmp webcast was packed full of announcements. The Webcast was delivered by Scott Guthrie and Joseph Sirosh. The SQL Server product delivering intelligence, trust and flexibility.

Microsoft confirmed that the next version of SQL Server is SQL Server 2017 and will be available simultaneously on Windows, Linux and Docker. Download the SQL Server 2017 datasheet.  It will be the first RDBMS to deliver AI with data. There is a convergence of cloud, data and intelligence. Delivering AI with data: the next generation of Microsoft’s data platform blog shares more information.  SQL Server 2017 Community Technology Preview 2.0 now available.

There were so many new features announced only a few are mentioned below.  There are adaptive query processing improvements which will enhance the performance of workloads. There is a You Tube video SQL Server 2017: Adaptive Query Processing discussing this. Threat detection is now in Azure SQL Database and is straight forward to configure. 

Hybrid Cloud just got easier to adopt with the new Azure migration resources and tools. To help with SQL Server migrations to the cloud features such as Service Broker, SQLAgent, Profiler etc. are now available in Azure. There is a new data migration service for automatic migration for SQL Server, Oracle and MySQL in Azure .

SQL Graph

Storing and analyzing graph data relationships. This includes full CRUD support to create nodes and edges and T-SQL query language extensions to provide multi-hop navigation using join-free pattern matching.  The SQL Server engine integration enables querying across SQL tables and graph data.

SQL Server on Linux

 

The official Microsoft repository for SQL Server in Docker containers is here.

Here are a few videos to help get you started with Linux:

• SQL Server 2017: Security on Linux
• Get started developing apps with SQL Server 2017 running on Linux
• SQL Server 2017: HA and DR on Linux

Analytics 

SQL Server is the first commercial database to include Deep Learning algorithms, with the announcement of the Microsoft Cognitive Services general availability of the FACE API and Computer Vision API.

Azure Data Lake Services now have petabyte scale.

Azure Analysis Services became generally available. You Tube video: SQL Server 2017: BI enhancements.  

You can use Python for advanced analytics, You Tube video: SQL Server 2017: Advanced Analytics with Python

Azure DocumentDB

Azure DocumentDB is globally distrubuted and offer limitless scale of throughput and storage. It can be used for things such as IoT applications that need low response times and need to handle massive amounts of reads and writes.

Cortana Intelligence Solution Templates

You can now quickly build Cortana Intelligence Solutions from preconfigured solutions, reference architectures and design patterns. Some are released with more to follow.

The really important thing that I am excited about is the flexibility of choice within the SQL Server product.

Joseph Sirosh concluded comparing the industrial revolution with the intelligence revolution of today.