April 12th, 2016 came and went without much fanfare. What you may not realize is that Microsoft’s mainstream support for SQL Server 2005 has officially ended. If your company currently uses SQL server 2005 in its environment, now is the time to discuss an upgrade and understand what is new!
Microsoft has ended extended support for SQL Server, meaning there will not be any more hotfixes or security updates released. Now is the time to plan your upgrade path to a more current version, such as SQL Server 2014, SQL Server 2016, or Azure SQL Database.
Upgrading your SQL infrastructure offers a number of advantages and can ultimately increase productivity in your environment for several reasons:
- Performance – Microsoft describes SQL Server 2014 up to 13 times faster than SQL Server 2005. Performance increases are a direct result of the way newer versions of SQL handle system memory.
- Better High Availability Features – Starting with SQL Server 2012, the AlwaysOn Availability group feature offers a great way to scale compute, networking and storage across multiple SQL servers in a cluster. AlwaysOn Availability groups also allow for granular control of HA services for databases, seamless and transparent failovers between local SQL nodes and faster failover times between production and DR nodes.
- SQL in The Cloud – Starting with SQL Server 2014, the SQL Server management tools have a new feature to directly control and migrate databases to the Azure cloud.
Migrations to newer SQL platforms require expertise in planning and designing of a highly-available architecture. It is imperative to understand proper sizing at the application, network and infrastructure layers in order to have a successful deployment. Helient Systems is available to discuss your current SQL challenges and assist in the design, planning and deployment of your upgraded SQL environment.
If you have any questions or would like to request more information on this topic, please contact us at support@helient.com.