# 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](#SQLServer.Concepts.General.FeatureSupport.2022)
+ [Microsoft SQL Server 2019 features](#SQLServer.Concepts.General.FeatureSupport.2019)
+ [Microsoft SQL Server 2017 features](#SQLServer.Concepts.General.FeatureSupport.2017)
+ [Microsoft SQL Server 2016 features](#SQLServer.Concepts.General.FeatureSupport.2016)
+ [Microsoft SQL Server 2014 end of support on Amazon RDS](#SQLServer.Concepts.General.FeatureSupport.2014)
+ [Microsoft SQL Server 2012 end of support on Amazon RDS](#SQLServer.Concepts.General.FeatureSupport.2012)
+ [Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 end of support on Amazon RDS](#SQLServer.Concepts.General.FeatureSupport.2008)
+ [Change data capture support for Microsoft SQL Server DB instances](SQLServer.Concepts.General.CDC.md)
+ [Features not supported and features with limited support](SQLServer.Concepts.General.FeatureNonSupport.md)
## 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)](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/what-s-new-in-sql-server-2022?view=sql-server-ver16) in the Microsoft documentation.
For a list of unsupported features, see [Features not supported and features with limited support](SQLServer.Concepts.General.FeatureNonSupport.md).
## 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)](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/what-s-new-in-sql-server-ver15) in the Microsoft documentation.
For a list of unsupported features, see [Features not supported and features with limited support](SQLServer.Concepts.General.FeatureNonSupport.md).
## 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](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/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](SQLServer.Concepts.General.FeatureNonSupport.md).
## 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](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/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](SQLServer.Concepts.General.VersionSupport.md#SQLServer.Concepts.General.Version-Management).
## 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](SQLServer.Concepts.General.VersionSupport.md#SQLServer.Concepts.General.Version-Management).
## 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](SQLServer.Concepts.General.VersionSupport.md#SQLServer.Concepts.General.Version-Management).
# Change data capture support for Microsoft SQL Server DB instances
Amazon RDS supports change data capture (CDC) for your DB instances running Microsoft SQL Server. CDC captures changes that are made to the data in your tables, and stores metadata about each change that you can access later. For more information, see [Change data capture](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/track-changes/track-data-changes-sql-server#Capture) in the Microsoft documentation.
Amazon RDS supports CDC for the following SQL Server editions and versions:
+ Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Edition (All versions)
+ Microsoft SQL Server Standard Edition:
+ 2022
+ 2019
+ 2017
+ 2016 version 13.00.4422.0 SP1 CU2 and later
To use CDC with your Amazon RDS DB instances, first enable or disable CDC at the database level by using RDS-provided stored procedures. After that, any user that has the `db_owner` role for that database can use the native Microsoft stored procedures to control CDC on that database. For more information, see [Using change data capture for Amazon RDS for SQL Server](Appendix.SQLServer.CommonDBATasks.CDC.md).
You can use CDC and AWS Database Migration Service to enable ongoing replication from SQL Server DB instances.
# Features not supported and features with limited support
The following Microsoft SQL Server features aren't supported on Amazon RDS:
+ Backing up to Microsoft Azure Blob Storage
+ Buffer pool extension
+ Custom password policies
+ Data Quality Services
+ Database Log Shipping
+ Database snapshots (Amazon RDS supports only DB instance snapshots)
+ Extended stored procedures, including xp\$1cmdshell
+ FILESTREAM support
+ File tables
+ Machine Learning and R Services (requires OS access to install it)
+ Maintenance plans
+ Performance Data Collector
+ Policy-Based Management
+ PolyBase
+ Replication
+ Server-level triggers
+ Service Broker endpoints
+ Stretch database
+ TRUSTWORTHY database property (requires sysadmin role)
+ T-SQL endpoints (all operations using CREATE ENDPOINT are unavailable)
+ WCF Data Services
The following Microsoft SQL Server features have limited support on Amazon RDS:
+ Distributed queries/linked servers. For more information, see [Implement linked servers with Amazon RDS for Microsoft SQL Server](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/database/implement-linked-servers-with-amazon-rds-for-microsoft-sql-server/).
+ Common Runtime Language (CLR). On RDS for SQL Server 2016 and lower versions, CLR is supported in `SAFE` mode and using assembly bits only. CLR isn't supported on RDS for SQL Server 2017 and higher versions. For more information, see [Common Runtime Language Integration](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/clr-integration/common-language-runtime-integration-overview) in the Microsoft documentation.
+ Link servers with Oracle OLEDB in Amazon RDS for SQL Server. For more information, see [Support for Linked Servers with Oracle OLEDB in Amazon RDS for SQL Server](Appendix.SQLServer.Options.LinkedServers_Oracle_OLEDB.md).
The following features aren't supported on Amazon RDS with SQL Server 2022:
+ Suspend database for snapshot
+ External Data Source
+ Backup and restore to S3 compatible object storage
+ Object store integration
+ TLS 1.3 and MS-TDS 8.0
+ Backup compression offloading with QAT
+ SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS)
+ Database mirroring with Multi-AZ deployments. SQL Server Always On is the only supported method with Multi-AZ deployments.