All About SQL Server 2025 That You Need to Know

As of today, most organizations are dependent on the SQL Server database for its security and ability to manage the data easily. That’s why it became a bigger deal when Microsoft announced the SQL Server 2025. With many advanced additions to the version and improved features, this version is already in talks. 

So let us take a deeper look into the SQL version 2025 to learn what it offers to the database administrators. 

What is SQL Server 2025 Version About?

The Microsoft SQL Server 2025 is a perfect blend of the best features of the SQL Server and the new additions of enhanced performance features, better integration with cloud services, and improved security in the server. Additionally, all these advancements in the SQL Server have ensured that the user’s experience gets better with each added feature. Here we will take a brief look at all these added features and what’s new in the 2025 version. 

• SQL Server Now with Built-in AI Capabilities
  With the built-in AI features in the SQL Server, businesses, organizations, and database administrators will benefit the most. These AI features will allow users to perform the operations in a less complex way, with much more precise results.
  
• Smooth Integration with Microsoft Cloud Services
  With the new additions of advanced features in the SQL Server, it is now easier for database administrators to manage the databases on their devices and also the cloud servers. 
  
• Improved Security And Data Integrity in SQL Server
  The updated version of the SQL Server has some of the best security features. To ensure crucial data protection in the server, and to offer enhanced security in the database, SQL 2025 has added advanced security features.

These are the added features in the SQL Server 2025. Furthermore, with the advanced features, Microsoft has ensured a smooth workflow of database operations. Let’s now take a thorough look at these upgrades. 

The New AI Built-In Models in SQL 2025

In the upgraded version of SQL Server, Microsoft has directly embedded AI in the database, allowing the users to benefit from the advanced tools and machine learning. Here’s what’s new with the SQL Server Database. 

• The first feature in the AI built-in is the Native Vector Support
  The Native Vector support helps the database administrators to effectively manage and store the vectorized data straight to the database. The Vectors can be defined as the numerical representations of the data widely used in the AI and machine learning models. They majorly help in procedures like natural language processes, image recognition processes, and recommendation systems.

• Another AI built-in feature of the SQL Server 2025 is the Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). The RAG is responsible for combining external knowledge with generative AI models.
  The Retrieval Phase in the RAG is responsible for fetching the important data.
  For the Generation Phase, it is responsible for providing the context for the fetched data to an AI model to produce more precise results.

Let’s now move to the features that helped with the performance optimization in the SQL Server upgraded version. 

Enhanced Performance Optimization

The upgraded version of the SQL Server has added many features to help with the improved performance of the SQL Server Database for the users. Here we have mentioned a few of these features. 

Optimal Parameter Plan Optimization(OPPO)

This feature is responsible for the automatic generation of several execution plans for the parameterized SQL queries. Additionally, it ensures a consistent and faster query execution, irrespective of the parameter changeability. 

Improved Query Performance

For the improvement of the query execution in the SQL Server, the new features adapt to the runtime conditions. With this adaptation, the query execution time is gradually reduced. 

Intelligent Features For Query Performance

To improve the query execution in the SQL Server database, the advanced features allow improved automatic indexing as well as batch mode processing. This helps with convenient index changes and faster row processing instead of processing row by row. 

Real-Time Analytics of the SQL Operations

The real-time analytics feature keeps the analytics of the live operational data without impacting the overall SQL Server database performance.

These all are the features in the SQL Server 2025 that help with improving the query performance in the SQL Server. Moving on to the next features, let’s learn how the SQL 2025 version helps with cloud integration.

Advanced Integration With Microsoft Cloud Services

On one hand, the SQL Server offers users the ease of accessing and managing the database on their local systems. Whereas the upgraded SQL version allows the users to operate on the cloud level along with the local servers. Here is what else is offered with the cloud service integration of the SQL Server. 

Higher Scalability

With the integration with the cloud servers, the scalability of the database is improved. Now the database administrators can Expand or shrink their database as per their requirements and they don’t need to buy any hardware for that. 

Improved Backup and Recovery

With the availability of the cloud servers, the SQL Servers can integrate with the cloud storage to offer more secure backups and recovery. 

Real-Time Analytics with Cloud Servers

In the SQL Server 2025 version, the SQL Server efficiently integrates with the Azure Synapse Analytics and Microsoft Fabric. These tools provide real-time analytics of the SQL operation without needing to export the data. 

Global Level Availability

The Cloud integration helps the database to be available in any region at any time for the user’s convenience. This helps greatly in times of server issues or unavailability of the systems. 

With the cloud server integration, the users are offered numerous opportunities to access the database in a more secure and wider environment. Additionally, the updated SQL Server version has some improved security features as well. Let’s understand what these features are. 

Enhanced Security Features In SQL Server Updated Version 2025

With the SQL Server upgraded version, the users have the advantage of the advanced security features to ensure the protection of crucial data in the database. Here is what SQL 2025 offers for database security. 

Advanced-Data Encryption Features

This can be considered the best security feature for SQL Server users as it allows them to encrypt the crucial data ensuring there is no unauthorized access to the data. 

Improved Data Classification

The advanced built-in tools in the SQL Server allow the users to classify sensitive data more efficiently in the database. This helps the users to keep track of who and when the sensitive data was accessed. 

Better Threat Detection and Alerts

The SQL Server 2025 has better upgrades for threat detection and alerts to monitor any suspicious activities in the SQL database. This threat detection helps the users to stay alert in case anything goes wrong in the database. 

Improved Backup Encryption

With the advanced backup encryption in the SQL Server, it is safer for the users to secure the backup file so that no one can access it. This allows the data to be safe even if it is stored on a cloud server. 

These are the features offered in the upgraded version of the SQL Server. Additionally, the features allow the users to keep the database to secure the crucial data in it. These features of the upgraded version of the SQL Server, have made the user’s experience better for day-to-day operations in the SQL Server. 

Conclusion

In this technical write-up, we have learned and understood all about SQL Server 2025. Along with all the added features in the SQL Server, we have also discussed how it will benefit the users. So with the release of the Microsoft SQL 2025 version, the users will be getting a lot of advanced features to perform the day-to-day operations.