What's new in Azure SQL Managed Instance?
Applies to: 
Azure SQL Managed Instance
This article summarizes the documentation changes associated with new features and improvements in the recent releases of Azure SQL Managed Instance. To learn more about Azure SQL Managed Instance, see What is Azure SQL Managed Instance?.
Note
Microsoft Entra ID was previously known as Azure Active Directory (Azure AD).
Preview
The following table lists the features of Azure SQL Managed Instance that are currently in preview.
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Entra nonunique name support | The CREATE USER Transact-SQL (T-SQL) syntax has been extended to include WITH OBJECT_ID to support creating Microsoft Entra logins and users in Azure SQL Managed Instance that have nonunique names. |
| Native Windows principals | Use the new Windows authentication metadata mode to allow Windows authentication or Microsoft Entra authentication (using a Windows principal metadata) with Azure SQL Managed Instance. |
| Service Broker | Support for cross-instance message exchange using Service Broker between instances of Azure SQL Managed Instance, and between SQL Server and Azure SQL Managed Instance. |
| Threat detection | Threat detection notifies you of security threats detected to your database. |
General availability (GA)
The following table lists features of Azure SQL Managed Instance that have been made generally available (GA) within the last 12 months:
| Feature | GA Month | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Fail over a link with T-SQL | October 2024 | You can now fail over a Managed Instance link by using Transact-SQL (T-SQL) commands. |
| Link from SQL MI to SQL Server | October 2024 | Configure a link from Azure SQL Managed Instance to SQL Server 2022. |
| Two-way DR with SQL Server 2022 | October 2024 | In the event of a disaster, you can fail your SQL Server 2022 workloads to Azure SQL Managed Instance using the link, and then, once the disaster is mitigated, you can fail back to SQL Server. |
| CURRENT_DATE Transact-SQL | August 2024 | A Transact-SQL (T-SQL) function that returns the current database system date as a date value, without the database time and time zone offset. |
| Maintenance window advance notifications | June 2024 | Advance notifications for SQL managed instance maintenance window are now generally available. |
| Azure SQL triggers for Azure Functions | March 2024 | Azure Functions supports function triggers for Azure SQL Managed Instance. |
| Cross-subscription database copy and move | December 2023 | Refresh of database copy and move functionality with added support for cross-subscription operations. |
| Database copy and move | November 2023 | Perform an online database copy or move operation across managed instances. |
| Double log write throughput limit | August 2023 | The max log write throughput limit has doubled for the Business Critical tier, up to 192 MB/s. |
| XML compression | August 2023 | XML compression for Azure SQL Managed Instance is now generally available. You can use ALTER INDEX to apply XML compression to existing XML indexes. |
| TDS 8.0 support | August 2023 | Azure SQL Managed Instance now supports TDS 8.0 for strict encryption of data in transit. |
| Private endpoints | August 2023 | Establish secure and isolated connectivity between Azure SQL Managed Instance and multiple virtual networks without exposing the entire network infrastructure of your service by using a private endpoint. Review these blog posts on Scenarios with private endpoints and Advanced scenarios with private endpoints to Azure SQL Managed Instance. |
Documentation changes
Learn about significant changes to the Azure SQL Managed Instance documentation. For previous years, see the What's new archive.
October 2024
| Changes | Details |
|---|---|
| Fail over a link with T-SQL GA | You can now fail over a Managed Instance link by using Transact-SQL (T-SQL) commands. This feature is now generally available. Review Fail over a link with T-SQL to learn more. |
| Link from SQL MI to SQL Server GA | Configure a link from Azure SQL Managed Instance to SQL Server 2022. This feature is now generally available. Review Link from SQL MI to SQL Server to learn more. |
| Two-way DR with SQL Server 2022 GA | In the event of a disaster, you can fail your SQL Server 2022 workloads to Azure SQL Managed Instance using the link, and then, once the disaster is mitigated, you can fail back to SQL Server. This feature is now generally available. Review Two-way DR with SQL Server 2022 to learn more. |
August 2024
| Changes | Details |
|---|---|
| CURRENT_DATE Transact-SQL GA | The CURRENT_DATE Transact-SQL (T-SQL) function returns the current database system date as a date value, without the database time and time zone offset. This function is now generally available. For more information, see CURRENT_DATE (Transact-SQL). |
| Fail over link with T-SQL preview | You can now fail over a Managed Instance link by using Transact-SQL (T-SQL) commands. This capability is currently in preview starting with SQL Server 2022 CU13 (KB5036432). To learn more, review fail over a database. |
July 2024
| Changes | Details |
|---|---|
| Native Windows principals | Native Windows principals in SQL Managed Instance is in preview. |
June 2024
| Changes | Details |
|---|---|
| Advance notifications GA | Advance notifications for upcoming SQL managed instance maintenance windows are now generally available. |
March 2024
| Changes | Details |
|---|---|
| Azure SQL triggers for Azure Functions GA | Azure Functions supports function triggers for Azure SQL Managed Instance. This feature is now generally available. Review Azure SQL triggers for Azure Functions to learn more. |
February 2024
| Changes | Details |
|---|---|
| OBJECT_ID T-SQL syntax preview | The CREATE USER Transact-SQL (T-SQL) syntax has been extended to include WITH OBJECT_ID to support creating Microsoft Entra logins and users in Azure SQL Managed Instance that have nonunique names. Using the OBJECT_ID syntax to create users and logins in Azure SQL Managed Instance is currently in preview. To learn more, review Microsoft Entra nonunique name support. |
Archive
For previous news, see the What's new archive.
Known issues
The known issues content has moved to a dedicated known issues in SQL Managed Instance article.