This week, we’re excited to kick off SQLCon 2026 alongside FabCon in Atlanta. Bringing these SQL and Cloth communities collectively creates a novel alternative to be taught, join, and share what’s subsequent throughout the Microsoft databases portfolio.
This 12 months is particularly significant, because it marks the return of a Microsoft‑led SQL neighborhood occasion, whereas additionally showcasing how SQL continues to evolve as a important a part of Cloth. It isn’t nearly new expertise, however about reconnecting with one another and constructing the way forward for SQL collectively.
It’s inspiring to see the Microsoft SQL neighborhood proceed to develop and have interaction, with person teams worldwide preserving conversations energetic throughout the SQL portfolio and a variety of clients utilizing Microsoft SQL to innovate on daily basis. With a complete portfolio constructed on strategic widespread foundations and out there throughout edge, PaaS, and SaaS, Microsoft databases kind a unified platform for contemporary enterprise wants, whether or not you’re migrating and modernizing, constructing cloud-native AI purposes, or unifying your information.
Migrate and modernize with Azure SQL
A lot of our clients are usually not modernizing in a single massive leap. You might be evolving from SQL Server to hybrid after which to cloud providers, and also you need that journey to really feel acquainted, predictable, and low threat. That’s precisely what Azure SQL is designed to ship. Constructed on a constant Microsoft SQL basis from on premises to the cloud, Azure SQL brings AI capabilities instantly into your database expertise, together with enterprise‑grade safety, excessive availability, and the pliability to scale as your wants develop. Azure SQL is totally SQL appropriate, delivers sturdy efficiency and low latency, and helps hybrid situations by means of Azure Arc.
AI brokers have gotten an necessary accelerator for database migration and modernization at Microsoft, serving to our clients scale back guide effort and transfer sooner with extra guided experiences throughout the journey. The normal availability of GitHub Copilot in SSMS 22 is a superb instance of that funding in motion: you should utilize the identical GitHub Copilot expertise you already use in Visible Studio and VS Code, now inside SQL Server Administration Studio (SSMS), with chat and code help that helps you write, edit, and refactor T‑SQL extra rapidly and confidently. Whether or not you’re a developer or database administrator (DBA), new to SQL or extremely skilled, GitHub Copilot can assist widespread workflows like enhancing queries and aiding with troubleshooting and administration duties proper the place you’re employed, and we’re persevering with to increase what it could actually do.
At present we’re asserting financial savings plan for databases, a versatile, spend-based pricing possibility that helps you save as much as 35%1 vs. pay-as-you-go costs on a one-year dedication. Financial savings plan for databases is designed for contemporary, evolving database environments: Clients decide to a set hourly spend for one 12 months and obtain decrease costs throughout eligible Azure database providers. Financial savings are robotically utilized to the highest-value utilization every hour, serving to scale back prices whereas supporting migration, modernization, and architectural change.
Construct cloud-native AI apps at scale
As soon as you progress to the cloud, the questions shift. How do you construct sooner, scale smarter, and unlock extra worth out of your information with out re‑architecting the whole lot you’ve gotten already constructed? That’s the place Azure SQL Database Hyperscale is available in.
With Azure SQL Database Hyperscale, clients achieve higher price-performance, elastic scale and resilience for any workload, with out the fee or disruption of rewriting T‑SQL or transforming operational fashions. Its distinctive structure, constructed on shared storage and a number of replicas, lets you scale reads independently from writes. With constructed‑in HTAP isolation, purposes can deal with huge transactional and analytical workloads with out complicated redesign. New capabilities now in public preview prolong that basis even additional, together with the SQL MCP Server for securely connecting SQL information to AI brokers and Copilots, in addition to bigger 160 and 192 vCore choices for prime‑throughput workloads.
We’re delivering sooner, extra succesful vector indexes to energy AI purposes. Latest enhancements enhance vector search efficiency and effectivity with no code modifications required. With full insert, replace, and delete assist, vector indexes keep present in actual time, enabling dynamic purposes. Options like quantization, iterative filtering, and tighter question optimizer integration present sooner, extra predictable outcomes, serving to groups construct responsive AI experiences instantly on their SQL information.
Temenos constructed its subsequent‑era banking platform, Temenos Core, on Azure utilizing Azure SQL Database Hyperscale to realize international scale, excessive availability, and resilient efficiency. The platform processes billions of transactions day by day and greater than 17,500 transactions per second at peak. By constructing on Hyperscale, Temenos diminished onboarding time, accelerated innovation, and shifted banks from worrying about downtime to competing on availability and digital innovation.
Unify your information property with SQL database in Cloth
We proceed to boost the bar on enterprise readiness for SQL database in Cloth by bringing enterprise-grade safety and compliance capabilities instantly into the platform. At present at SQLCon, we introduced the overall availability of options together with SQL Auditing, Buyer‑Managed Keys, and Dynamic Knowledge Masking, and the preview of workspace‑degree Personal Hyperlink. We introduced these enhancements to assist clients meet strict governance and regulatory necessities with out including operational complexity. The result’s confidence that your SQL workloads in Cloth are safe, compliant, and prepared for manufacturing.
SQL database in Cloth is turning into much more highly effective for AI‑pushed purposes. The identical vector indexing enhancements out there in Azure SQL Database Hyperscale at the moment are constructed into SQL database in Cloth as nicely. As a result of each are powered by the identical Microsoft SQL engine, clients profit from constant efficiency, capabilities, and innovation throughout the SQL portfolio—making it simpler to construct clever purposes wherever their information lives.
Lastly, shifting to SQL database in Cloth is easier than ever. The Migration Assistant now helps SQL database in Cloth as a goal vacation spot. It gives a Copilot-assisted expertise that helps SQL builders assess readiness, migrate schema, determine compatibility points, and replica information with much less guide effort. By preserving acquainted SQL abilities and workflows, clients can modernize at their very own tempo whereas accelerating time to worth on Cloth’s unified analytics and AI platform.
There may be yet another Cloth innovation that issues deeply for the way we ship Microsoft databases as a unified platform. As purposes develop extra refined, most organizations now depend on a mixture of SQL and NoSQL databases throughout cloud, on‑premises, and edge environments. Provisioning, monitoring, and sustaining well being throughout a rising database fleet typically requires a number of instruments and portals, making it more durable to see what’s occurring and handle at scale.
To handle this, we’re introducing the Database Hub in Microsoft Cloth, now out there in early entry. The Database Hub gives a unified database administration expertise that brings collectively databases throughout edge, cloud, and Cloth into one coherent view. From a single place, database groups can discover, observe, govern, and optimize their total property, together with Azure SQL, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc, and Azure Database for MySQL with out altering how every service is deployed or operated.
Constructed for scale, the Database Hub introduces an agent-assisted, human-in-the-loop strategy to database administration. Clever brokers repeatedly cause over estate-wide alerts to floor what modified, clarify why it issues, and information groups towards what to do subsequent, whereas built-in observability, delegated governance, and Copilot-powered insights assist groups transfer from perception to motion with higher confidence. With the Database Hub, groups spend much less time navigating instruments and extra time enabling what comes subsequent: unlocking deeper integration throughout purposes, analytics, and AI from a single management airplane for the Microsoft databases portfolio.
Database Hub is obtainable at present in early entry. Join at present and see how the Database Hub can convey readability and management to your database property.
SQLCon is about bringing the SQL neighborhood collectively. It’s about rebuilding connections and shared studying. It additionally displays our long-term dedication to SQL. With a complete portfolio constructed on strategic widespread foundations and out there throughout edge, PaaS, and SaaS, Microsoft databases present a unified platform for contemporary enterprise wants, whether or not you’re migrating and modernizing, constructing cloud-native AI purposes, or unifying your information. We’re investing in SQL for the longer term, alongside the neighborhood that continues to form it.
Lastly, SQLCon is coming to Europe! Be part of the worldwide information and SQL neighborhood from 28 Sep – 01st October, 2026 in Barcelona, Spain for hands-on studying, skilled insights, and real-world tales. Register to be part of it. I can’t wait to see you there.
Extra SQL sources
1Clients may even see financial savings estimated to be between 0% and 35%. The 35% financial savings estimate relies on one Azure SQL Database serverless working for 12 months at a pay-as-you-go price vs. a diminished price for a 1-year financial savings plan. Primarily based on Azure pricing as of March 2026. Costs are topic to alter. Precise financial savings might differ primarily based on location, database service, and/or utilization.