Month: November 2025

SQL Server 2025 – Love for Standard Edition

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Super excited that today, SQL Server 2025 is now Generally Available!

Standard Edition Enhancements

While all of the new features and such were available during Public Preview, one thing that was not public until now is that Standard Edition limits have been increased! Yay! The CPU core count limit is now 32 cores (or 4 sockets, whichever is lesser) and the max buffer pool memory per instance is now 256GB! Additionally, Resource Governor is now available for Standard Edition. And in SQL Server 2025, Resource Governor can also help you manage TempDB!

Why This Matters

I still encounter many organizations that rely on SQL Server Standard Edition. And many often delay upgrading SQL Server for one reason or another. In my opinion, the hardware limit changes now give organizations a much more compelling reason to consider 2025 as their next upgrade rather than going to 2022 next. Remember, if you don’t want any of the other new “fancy” 2025 features, you don’t have to use them and/or can turn them off via Database Scoped Configurations.

Check it Out Today

Developer download ISO’s are available now. And oh yeah, don’t forget that you can now install Standard Developer edition, to match your Standard edition prod environment too!

T-SQL Tuesday #192: SQL Server 2025!!!

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T-SQL Tuesday Logo

Welcome back to another edition of T-SQL Tuesday! This month’s edition is hosted by Steve Jones, who is asking authors to share what they’re excited about in this new release.

Going Beyond Vector Search

Through the tight partnership between Pure Storage and Microsoft, I’ve had the privilege of “knowing what’s coming next” for quite a while now. It’s why I was able to get a jump start on Vector Search work for example. But that’s not what I’m going to talk about today.

At this point, Vector Search and AI may steal the spotlight, but there’s SO MUCH MORE in the new release! What I’m going to highlight may be the least “shiny” and “flashy” but I believe it’ll have broad impact – Availability Group enhancements.

AG’s Under the Covers

In my role at Pure Storage, I’ve learned a tremendous amount about how AG’s work under the covers. Pure offers storage array options for HA/DR replication and I regularly have conversations with customers about the pros and cons of mixing and matching application level options like AGs with storage array options.

One thing I never really fully understood, until I stumbled upon this blog about a year back, is the construct of Flow Control in AGs. In fact, if you’ve never checked out SQLTableTalk.com, take a moment to check it out – they offer a tremendous amount of deep content about SQL Server (with the two original founders being Microsoft employees – RIP Yvonne).

But I digress. All of the new options in regards to AG’s like max ucs send boxcars are there to improve performance, resiliency, and failover efficiency of Availability Groups. And I feel many DBAs do not fully appreciate how AG’s really work under the covers, which is why I feel that it is worthwhile to highlight these resources.

Your Homework

If you use AG’s today, I would encourage you to refresh your knowledge on how AG’s communicate behind the scenes. Once you do, then look into the 2025 enhancements and I believe you’ll come away with a better appreciation of how 2025 further improves on Availability Groups.