Dev Blogs
Microsoft.Data.SqlClient includes configurable retry logic for SqlConnection and SqlCommand, giving .NET applications built-in resilience for transient SQL Server failures without requiring Polly.
If you’ve been building local prototypes, internal tools, web backends, or lightweight services on SQL Server Express, you know the routine: it’s free, familiar, and gets the job done – until you hit hardware limits or spend weekends manual backup scripts and handling OS patches. Learn how to upgrade from SQL Server Express to Azure SQL Database fr...
Learn why SET NOCOUNT ON improves stored procedure efficiency, reduces unnecessary messages, and matters to .NET developers.
We’re halfway through 2026, and Microsoft SQL has not slowed down. Since SQLCon/FabCon in March (where we released a ton of things, and those updates can be found in this updates video), we shipped a wave of updates across SQL Server, Azure SQL, and SQL database in Fabric, with Microsoft Build 2026 as the centerpiece. If you want the details on Bui...
If you work with Microsoft SQL regularly, the AI conversation right now probably feels a little exhausting. Every week brings a new platform, a new pattern, a new opinion about how you’re “supposed” to build AI apps. Most of it assumes you’ll start over. You don’t have to. We’re running SQL AI App in a Day workshops with Microsoft partners ar...
At a glance — Native regular expression (regex) functions in T-SQL now accept and inputs of up to 2 MB across all seven regex functions, including the two table-valued functions ( and ). This capability ships in SQL Server 2025 CU5 and is already available in Azure SQL Database, SQL Database in Fabric and Azure SQL Managed Instance configured wit...
Artificial Intelligence is evolving rapidly. What began as simple prompt-and-response systems is now transforming into fully autonomous, agentic AI architectures capable of reasoning, orchestrating tools, interacting with enterprise data, and invoking external systems dynamically. While these capabilities unlock enormous business potential, they al...
The Agent-Ready Database: Security, Backup, and MCP Part 4 of 4 – The Multi-Model Database Series This is the final post in a four-part series on multi-model databases in SQL Server 2025 and Azure SQL - exploring how the optimizer, storage engine, and security layer treat each data model as a first-class citizen under one roof. In Part 1: The ...
Making schema changes often means jumping between tools. You write code in VS Code, then switch to a separate tool to deploy your changes : exporting a script, running it manually, or copy-pasting into a query editor. Either way, it pulls you out of your flow. With the latest updates to SQL Database Projects in VS Code, that context switching is n...
When JSON Met Graph Part 2 of 4 - The Multi-model Database Series A note on naming. Throughout this series, when we say "SQL Server 2025" we also mean Azure SQL. The multi-model capabilities we discuss - native JSON, graph, vector, and columnstore - are available across both the on-premises engine and the Azure SQL family. In Part 1 we des...