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sql-server-end-of-life-overview.md

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title End of support options
description Learn about the different options available for the end of support, and end of life for your SQL Server products, such as SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008, and SQL Server 2008 R2.
ms.custom
ms.date 12/09/2019
ms.prod sql
ms.reviewer pmasl
ms.technology install
ms.topic conceptual
author MashaMSFT
ms.author mathoma
monikerRange >=sql-server-2016||=sqlallproducts-allversions

SQL Server end of support options

[!INCLUDEappliesto-ss-xxxx-xxxx-xxx-md-winonly]

Each version of SQL Server is backed by a minimum of 10 years support, which includes 5 years in mainstream support, and five years in extended support, including regular security updates. End of support means the end of security updates, which can cause security and compliance issues as well as put applications and their business at risk. Additionally, support options are limited for customers who call into Microsoft Support for a product that has reached the end of its support cycle.

Once your SQL Server has reached the end of its support lifecycle, you can choose to:

For more information, guidance, and tools to plan and automate your upgrade or migration, see SQL Server 2005 end of support and SQL Server 2008 end of support.

25 years of SQL Server innovation

Upgrade SQL Server

You can upgrade your existing SQL Server to a newer and supported version of SQL Server.

Benefits

  • Latest technology: Get the most out of innovation by taking advantage of the latest features and security improvements.
  • Control: You have the most control over features and scalability because you manage both hardware and software.
  • Familiar environment: If you're upgrading from an older instance of SQL Server, this is the most similar environment.
  • Wide applicability: Applicable for database applications of any kind, including OLTP systems and data warehousing.

Considerations

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  • Costly: You have to make the biggest up-front investment and provide the most ongoing management, because you have to buy, maintain, and manage your own hardware and software.
  • Downtime: There could be downtime, plus the inherent risk of running into issues during an in-place upgrade process.
  • Potentially risky: If you're on Windows 2008 or 2008 R2, you will also need to upgrade the OS as the newer versions of SQL may not be supported on Windows 2008 or 2008 R2. There is added risk during the OS upgrade process, so doing a side-by-side migration may be the more prudent, yet more costly, approach. Additionally, in-place OS upgrades are not supported on failover cluster instances.

Resources
Installation Upgrade SQL Server using Installation Wizard Installation media
What's new SQL Server 2016 SQL Server 2017 SQL Server 2019
Supported version & edition upgrades SQL Server 2016 SQL Server 2017 SQL Server 2019
Hardware requirements SQL Server 2017 and prior SQL Server 2019
Tools Database Experimentation Assistant can help evaluate the target version of SQL Server for a specific workload. Data Migration Assistant can help detect compatibility issues that can impact database functionality in your new version of SQL Server.

25 years of SQL Server innovation

Extend support

You can purchase an Extended Security Updates subscription to receive Critical security updates.

Benefit Description
Application support This is the best option if your application has not yet been certified for a newer version of SQL Server.
Consistent infrastructure You don't have to change your infrastructure in any way.
Technical support If you have Software Assurance, or another support plan, you can continue receiving technical support from Microsoft on your end-of-support SQL product. This is the only way to get support for SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 after the end of the support date.
Time This option is available for three years, giving you extra time to prepare your strategy, and certify your applications.
Consideration Description
Limited availability This option is only available to customers with Software Assurance or subscription licenses.
Costly This option can prove costly, as Extended Security Updates are approximately 75% of the on-premises license cost annually.
Limited timeframe This option is only available for three years so you will still need to upgrade or migrate at the end of the three year period if you want to ensure your security and compliance.
No bug fixes If you encounter a bug with the product, Microsoft will not release a bug-fix for it.
Limited support Extended Security Updates do not include new features, customer-requested non-security hotfixes, or design change requests.

Benefits

  • Application support: This is the best option if your application has not yet been certified for a newer version of SQL Server.
  • Consistent infrastructure: You don't have to change your infrastructure in any way.
  • Technical support: If you have Software Assurance, or another support plan, you can continue receiving technical support from Microsoft on your end-of-support SQL product. This is the only way to get support for SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 after the end of the support date.
  • Time| This option is available for three years, giving you extra time to certify your applications.

Considerations

  • Limited availability: This option is only available to customers with Software Assurance or subscription licenses.
  • Costly: This option can prove costly, as Extended Security Updates are approximately 75% of the on-premises license cost annually.
  • Limited timeframe: This option is only available for three years so you will still need to upgrade or migrate at the end of the three year period if you want to ensure your security and compliance.
  • No bug fixes: If you encounter a bug with the product, Microsoft will not release a bug-fix for it.
  • Limited support: Extended Security Updates do not include new features, customer-requested non-security hotfixes, or design change requests.

Resources

Azure virtual machine

You can migrate your workload to a virtual machine hosted in Azure.

Benefits

  • Free Extended Security Updates: If you choose to keep your SQL Server as-is using SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 R2, you can get free Extended Security Updates for three years past the end of the support date, without having Software Assurance.
  • Cost-saving: You save the cost of hardware and server software, only paying for hourly usage.
  • Hosted environment: You will get the benefits of a hosted environment, such as offloading hardware, and software maintenance. Additionally,
  • Automation: If you're on Windows 2008 R2 and greater, you will get the benefit of automated patching, and automated backups.
  • OS Control: You have control over the operating environment, but with the familiar feature set of SQL Server.
  • Deployability: You can quickly deploy from a library of virtual machine images.
  • Scalability: You can add additional storage without downtime.
  • License mobility: You can bring your license, allowing you to decrease operating cost.
  • High availability: Not only do you benefit from the built-in virtual machine high availability provided by availability set, or availability zone Azure infrastructure, but you can take advantage of high availability options such as failover cluster instances and Always On availability groups.

Considerations

  • Manageability: You still have to manage both SQL Server and operating system software.
  • Networking: You have to configure the virtual machine to integrate with your networking and active directory infrastructure, which is an added layer of complexity.
  • Shared storage FCI: Azure virtual machines only support failover cluster instances using Storage Spaces Direct or Premium File Shares, and do not support a failover cluster instance using shared storage.

Resources

Azure SQL Database single database

You can migrate your workload to an Azure SQL Database single database or elastic pool.

Benefits

Benefits Description
Cost Single database can be very cost-effective, since hardware, software, and maintenance is offloaded, and you can pay for usage by the second or the hour.
Flexibility Single database is particularly well suited for cloud-designed applications when developer productivity and fast time-to-market solutions are critical, or that have require external access.
Common features The most commonly used SQL Server features are available, but not as many as for an Azure SQL Database managed instance.
Deployability You can quickly deploy a single database.
Scalability You can quickly and easily scale up and down as is needed for your business, providing additional cost-saving benefits.
Availability The cost of the service includes both storage and high availability, with 99.995% availability guaranteed.
Automation Patching and backups happening automatically, saving you valuable maintenance time.
Intelligent Insights Gain insight about the performance of your database with built-in intelligence analytics.

Considerations

Consideration Description
Limited migration options You can only migrate a single database at a time, rather than an entire instance.
Limited features The feature set for a single database is limited when compared to an Azure SQL Database managed instance or a fully-fledged SQL Server deployment on an Azure virtual machine.
T-SQL differences There are some Transact-SQL (T-SQL) differences between a single database and an on-premises SQL Server.
Size limitations A single database has a maximum database size of 100 TB, compared to a 524 PB size for SQL Server.

Resources

Azure SQL Database managed instance

You can migrate your workload to an Azure SQL Database managed instance or instance pool.

Benefits

Benefits Description
Cost You can save costs by offloading software and hardware maintenance.
Lift and shift You can lift and shift your entire SQL Server on-premises instance to a managed instance, including all databases with minimal to no database change.
Features The feature set of a managed instance closely matches that of an on-premises instance of SQL Server, such as cross-database queries, transactional replication publishing and distribution, SQL job scheduling, and CLR support.
Scalability All databases within a managed instance share resources, and it is possible to scale up and down at any time.
Automation Patching and backups happening automatically, saving you valuable maintenance time.
Availability The cost of the service includes both storage and high availability, with 99.995% availability guaranteed.
Intelligent Insights Gain insight about the performance of your databases with built-in intelligence analytics.

Considerations

Consideration Description
Cost The managed instance option can be more costly than the single database option.
T-SQL differences There are some Transact-SQL (T-SQL) differences between a single database and an on-premises SQL Server.
Deployability Deploying a managed instance can take significantly more time than a single database.
Feature limitation Although a managed instance shares most features with SQL Server, there are still some features that are unsupported.
Networking The networking requirements for a managed instance add an extra layer of complexity to your infrastructure.

Resources

Non-SQL options

You may also want to consider a non-relational or NoSQL solution for certain data and applications.

Non-relational solution Benefits
Azure Cosmos DB

Consider this option for modern, scalable, mobile, and web applications that use JSON data and require a combination of robust querying and transactional data processing.

For more info, see Cosmos DB.

For info about importing data, see Import data to Cosmos DB.		 Your documents are indexed and you can use familiar SQL syntax to query them.

The database is schema-free.

You can add properties to documents without having to rebuild indexes.

You get JSON and JavaScript support right inside the database engine.

You get native support for geospatial data and integration with other Azure Services including Azure Search, HDInsight, and Data Factory.

You get low latency, high-performance storage with reserved throughput levels.
Azure table storage

Consider this option to store petabytes of semi-structured data in a cost-effective solution.

For more info, see Table Storage.		 You can evolve your apps and your table schema without taking the data offline.

You can scale up without sharding your dataset.

You get geo-redundant storage that replicates data across multiple regions.

Lifecycle dates

The following table provides an approximation of lifecycle dates for SQL Server products. For greater details and accuracy, see the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy page.

| Version | Release year | Mainstream Support end year | Extended Support end year | | :---------------| :--------------- |:------------------------------- | | SQL Server 2019 | 2019 | 2025 | 2030 | | SQL Server 2017 | 2017 | 2022 | 2027 | | SQL Server 2016 | 2016 | 2021 | 2026 | | SQL Server 2014 | 2014 | 2019 | 2024 | | SQL Server 2012 | 2012 | 2017 | 2022 | | SQL Server 2008 R2 | 2010 | 2012 | 2019 | | SQL Server 2008 | 2008 | 2012 | 2019 | | SQL Server 2005 | 2006 | 2011 | 2016 | | SQL Server 2000 | 2000 | 2005 | 2013 |

Important

If any discrepancy exists between this table, and the Microsoft Lifecycle page, then the Microsoft Lifecycle supersedes this table, as this table is meant to be used as an approximate reference.

Get SQL Server

To download an evaluation copy of SQL Server, see SQL Server downloads.

Next Steps

SQL Server 2017
SQL Server 2005 end of support
SQL Server 2008 end of support