Book Image

SQL Server 2017 Administrator's Guide

4 (1)
Book Image

SQL Server 2017 Administrator's Guide

4 (1)

Overview of this book

Take advantage of the real power of SQL Server 2017 with all its new features, in addition to covering core database administration tasks. This book will give you a competitive advantage by helping you quickly learn how to design, manage, and secure your database solution. You will learn how to set up your SQL Server and configure new (and existing) environments for optimal use. After covering the designing aspect, the book delves into performance-tuning aspects by teaching you how to effectively use indexes. The book will also teach you about certain choices that need to be made about backups and how to implement a rock-solid security policy and keep your environment healthy. Finally, you will learn about the techniques you should use when things go wrong, and other important topics, such as migration, upgrading, and consolidation, are covered in detail. Integration with Azure is also covered in depth. Whether you are an administrator or thinking about entering the field, this book will provide you with all the skills you need to successfully create, design, and deploy databases using SQL Server 2017.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)

Why migration is necessary

An important reason to upgrade is the support for SQL Server. Once the mainstream support for SQL Server ends, there will be no more service packs and cumulative updates bringing new features to the old versions.

As you can see from the following table, just three SQL Server versions are supported as of now (Fall 2017). And those are SQL Server 2014, SQL Server 2016, and the current SQL Server 2017:

SQL Server version Release date End of mainstream support
SQL Server 2000 Nov 2000 4/8/2008
SQL Server 2005 Jan 2006 4/12/2011
SQL Server 2008 Nov 2008 1/14/2014
SQL Server 2008 R2 Jul 2010 1/14/2014
SQL Server 2012 May 2012 7/11/2017
SQL Server 2014 June 2014 7/9/2019
SQL Server 2016 June 2016 10/12/2021
SQL Server 2017 Sept 2017 10/11/2022

Although many of the older versions are not supported anymore, it does not mean those are not...