Microsoft SQL Server features on Amazon RDS - Amazon Relational Database Service
SQL Server 2022 featuresSQL Server 2019 featuresSQL Server 2017 featuresSQL Server 2016 featuresSQL Server 2014 featuresSQL Server 2012 end of support on Amazon RDSSQL Server 2008 R2 end of support on Amazon RDS

Microsoft SQL Server features on Amazon RDS

The supported SQL Server versions on Amazon RDS include the following features. In general, a version also includes features from the previous versions, unless otherwise noted in the Microsoft documentation.

Topics

Microsoft SQL Server 2022 features

SQL Server 2022 includes many new features, such as the following:

  • Parameter Sensitive Plan Optimization – allows multiple cached plans for a single parameterized statement, potentially reducing issues with parameter sniffing.

  • SQL Server Ledger – provides the ability to cryptographically prove that your data hasn't been altered without authorization.

  • Instant file initialization for transaction log file growth events – results in faster execution of log growth events up to 64MB, including for databases with TDE enabled.

  • System page latch concurrency enhancements – reduces page latch contention while allocating and deallocating data pages and extents, providing significant performance enhancements to tempdb heavy workloads.

For the full list of SQL Server 2022 features, see What's new in SQL Server 2022 (16.x) in the Microsoft documentation.

For a list of unsupported features, see Features not supported and features with limited support.

Microsoft SQL Server 2019 features

SQL Server 2019 includes many new features, such as the following:

  • Accelerated database recovery (ADR) – Reduces crash recovery time after a restart or a long-running transaction rollback.

  • Intelligent Query Processing (IQP):

    • Row mode memory grant feedback – Corrects excessive grants automatically, that would otherwise result in wasted memory and reduced concurrency.

    • Batch mode on rowstore – Enables batch mode execution for analytic workloads without requiring columnstore indexes.

    • Table variable deferred compilation – Improves plan quality and overall performance for queries that reference table variables.

  • Intelligent performance:

    • OPTIMIZE_FOR_SEQUENTIAL_KEY index option – Improves throughput for high-concurrency inserts into indexes.

    • Improved indirect checkpoint scalability – Helps databases with heavy DML workloads.

    • Concurrent Page Free Space (PFS) updates – Enables handling as a shared latch rather than an exclusive latch.

  • Monitoring improvements:

    • WAIT_ON_SYNC_STATISTICS_REFRESH wait type – Shows accumulated instance-level time spent on synchronous statistics refresh operations.

    • Database-scoped configurations – Include LIGHTWEIGHT_QUERY_PROFILING and LAST_QUERY_PLAN_STATS.

    • Dynamic management functions (DMFs) – Include sys.dm_exec_query_plan_stats and sys.dm_db_page_info.

  • Verbose truncation warnings – The data truncation error message defaults to include table and column names and the truncated value.

  • Resumable online index creation – In SQL Server 2017, only resumable online index rebuild is supported.

For the full list of SQL Server 2019 features, see What's new in SQL Server 2019 (15.x) in the Microsoft documentation.

For a list of unsupported features, see Features not supported and features with limited support.

Microsoft SQL Server 2017 features

SQL Server 2017 includes many new features, such as the following:

  • Adaptive query processing

  • Automatic plan correction (an automatic tuning feature)

  • GraphDB

  • Resumable index rebuilds

For the full list of SQL Server 2017 features, see What's new in SQL Server 2017 in the Microsoft documentation.

For a list of unsupported features, see Features not supported and features with limited support.

Microsoft SQL Server 2016 features

Amazon RDS supports the following features of SQL Server 2016:

  • Always Encrypted

  • JSON Support

  • Operational Analytics

  • Query Store

  • Temporal Tables

For the full list of SQL Server 2016 features, see What's new in SQL Server 2016 in the Microsoft documentation.

Microsoft SQL Server 2014 end of support on Amazon RDS

SQL Server 2014 has reached its end of support on Amazon RDS.

RDS is upgrading all existing DB instances that are still using SQL Server 2014 to the latest minor version of SQL Server 2016. For more information, see Version management in Amazon RDS.

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 end of support on Amazon RDS

SQL Server 2012 has reached its end of support on Amazon RDS.

RDS is upgrading all existing DB instances that are still using SQL Server 2012 to the latest minor version of SQL Server 2016. For more information, see Version management in Amazon RDS.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 end of support on Amazon RDS

SQL Server 2008 R2 has reached its end of support on Amazon RDS.

RDS is upgrading all existing DB instances that are still using SQL Server 2008 R2 to the latest minor version of SQL Server 2012. For more information, see Version management in Amazon RDS.