The top 5 reasons to upgrade to SQL Server 2016 

2 min read

Upgrading your software can be daunting, we know. The fast pace of business makes it easy to tell yourself, “I’ll do it later when I have time.” We get it! But here are five key reasons to make time to upgrade to SQL Server 2016, which was named DBMS of the Year in 2016 by Read more

ODBC Driver 13.1 for SQL Server released 

2 min read

We are pleased to announce the full release of the Microsoft ODBC Driver 13.1 for SQL Server. The updated driver provides robust data access to Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Azure SQL Database for C/C++ based applications. What’s new Always Encrypted You can now use Always Encrypted with the Microsoft ODBC Driver 13.1 for SQL Read more

3 Comments

Microsoft JDBC Driver 6.0 for SQL Server is now released! 

2 min read

This post was authored by Andrea Lam, Program Manager, SQL Server. We are pleased to announce the full release of the Microsoft JDBC Driver 6.0 for SQL Server! The updated driver provides robust data access to Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Azure SQL Database for Java-based applications. What’s new Always Encrypted You can now use Read more

7 Comments

Speeding up Transactions with In-Memory OLTP in SQL Server 2016 and Azure SQL Database 

5 min read

In-Memory OLTP, a performance feature in SQL Server since 2014, allows you to speed up transactional workloads up to 30X. SQL Server 2016 and Azure SQL DB have In-Memory OLTP in public preview, and contain many improvements to In-Memory OLTP, making it drastically easier to adopt in an existing application, and allowing many other applications Read more

4 Comments

Always Encrypted in SQL Server & Azure SQL Database 

2 min read

This post was authored by Joseph Sirosh, Corporate Vice President of the Data Group at Microsoft. Most data breaches involve the theft of critical data such as social security or credit card numbers. What if you could store these sensitive data elements encrypted in your database, allowing decryption only at the point of use by Read more

2 Comments

SQL Server 2016 Community Technology Preview 3.0 is available 

10 min read

The SQL Server engineering team is pleased to announce the availability of SQL Server 2016 October public preview release CTP 3.0.  This release is a key milestone for SQL Server 2016 with all the key capabilities landing, including RRE integration. To learn more about this release, visit the SQL Server 2016 preview page. To experience Read more

10 Comments

Top 10 reasons to upgrade from SQL Server 2005 

4 min read

April 12, 2016, is an important date for organizations still running SQL Server 2005. That’s the day Microsoft extended support ends. And although next year may seem like a long way off, this year is the time to implement a plan to upgrade your aging technology to Microsoft SQL Server 2014. Not convinced an upgrade Read more

2 Comments

Download the new JDBC 4.2 for SQL Server Driver 

1 min read

We are pleased to announce availability of the Microsoft JDBC 4.2 Driver for SQL Server! The updated driver provides robust data access to Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Azure SQL Database for Java-based applications. The JDBC Driver for SQL Server is a Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) type 4 driver that implements full compliance with the Read more

1 Comment

New Azure SQL Database offerings add capabilities to scale data up and out 

2 min read

Tiffany Wissner, Senior Director of Data Platform MarketingAt Microsoft we’re committed to meeting the needs of our customers by offering choices as they build cloud applications for scale and performance. Today we’re continuing to deliver on this commitment with two announcements: New high performance levels for Azure SQL Database, P4 and P11, with greater flexibility to Read more

1 Comment

Microsoft Strengthens Data Platform with SQL Database and Big Data Appliance Updates, Adds New Java SDK for its NoSQL Service 

3 min read

By Tiffany Wissner, Senior Director, Data Platform Making it easier for more of our customers to access our latest big data technologies, we are announcing updates to some of our flagship data platform products and services. These updates are part of our approach to make it easier for our customers to work with data of Read more

1 Comment

Microsoft announces major update to Azure SQL Database, adds free tier to Azure Machine Learning 

4 min read

This morning at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) Summit, we celebrated SQL Server 2014’s strong momentum and introduced new services that further expand Microsoft’s big data platform. We announced a major update coming to our database-as-a-service, Azure SQL Database, and easier access to our machine learning service, Azure Machine Learning. These new updates Read more

2 Comments