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
Approximate or fuzzy string matching Check if two strings are similar, and calculate the difference between two strings. Use this capability to identify strings that might be different because of character corruption.
DATEADD number allows bigint For DATEADD (datepart, number, date), number can be expressed as a bigint.
Modernization Advisor Use the Modernization Advisor in the Azure portal to help you determine if migrating to Azure SQL Managed Instance from a SQL Server VM saves you money or optimizes performance.
Regular expression functions Regular expression (REGEX) functions return text based on values in a search pattern.
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.
SQL Server 2025 update policy Align your SQL managed instance database format with the SQL Server 2025 database engine.

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
Optimized locking July 2025 Azure SQL Managed Instance with the SQL Server 2025 update policy now has optimized locking enabled for all user databases.
UNISTR (Transact-SQL) July 2025 Azure SQL Managed Instance now supports the UNISTR T-SQL syntax for Unicode string literals.
|| (String concatenation) and ||= (Compound assignment) syntax support July 2025 Azure SQL Managed Instance now supports || (String concatenation) and ||= (Compound assignment) Transact-SQL syntax.
Zone redundancy for General Purpose June 2025 Deploy your General Purpose SQL Managed Instance to multiple availability zones to improve the availability of your instance in the event of a disaster.
Invoke an HTTPS REST endpoint SP June 2025 Use the sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint stored procedure to invoke an HTTPS REST endpoint provided as an input argument to the procedure.
TLS 1.3 support for replication May 2025 Configure Azure SQL Managed Instance replication agents to use TLS 1.3.
JSON native data type May 2025 The json data type provides new capabilities for handling semistructured data in Azure SQL Managed Instance.
JSON aggregate functions May 2025 Two json aggregate functions (JSON_OBJECTAGG and JSON_ARRAYAGG) enable construction of JSON objects or arrays based on an aggregate from SQL data.
MI link from SQL Server 2017 March 2025 Configure a link from SQL Server 2017 to Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Native Windows principals February 2025 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.
Instance pools November 2024 Save on costs and share resources between multiple instances in a pool within a single virtual machine. A convenient and cost-efficient way to migrate smaller SQL Server instances to the cloud, and the only way to deploy a 2-vCore managed instance.
Microsoft Entra nonunique name support November 2024 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.

Documentation changes

Learn about significant changes to the Azure SQL Managed Instance documentation. For previous years, see the What's new archive.

October

Changes Details
Redirect connection type default The redirect connection type is now default for all new and existing instances. The redirect connection type has better latency and throughput performance compared to the legacy proxy connection type. SQL managed instances with the proxyOverride value set to Default before October 2025 are converted to the legacy Proxy connection type, which you can change to Redirect manually using the Azure portal or PowerShell.

September

Changes Details
New Azure SQL hub Choosing the right Azure SQL service can be challenging. To make this easier, we built the Azure SQL hub, a new home for everything related to Azure SQL in the Azure portal.
SQL Server 2025 update policy preview Align your SQL managed instance database format with the SQL Server 2025 database engine. This capability is now in preview. To learn more, review SQL Server 2025 update policy.

July 2025

| TLS 1.0 and 1.1 retirement FAQ | Azure has announced that support for older TLS versions (TLS 1.0, and 1.1) ends August 31, 2025. For more information, see TLS 1.0 and 1.1 deprecation frequently asked questions. Starting August 2025, versions below TLS 1.2 won't be available. | |Optimized locking GA| The optimized locking feature is generally available for Azure SQL Managed Instance configured with the SQL Server 2025 update policy and enabled for all user databases.| | UNISTR (Transact-SQL) GA | Azure SQL Managed Instance now supports the UNISTR T-SQL syntax for Unicode string literals. This capability is now generally available for Azure SQL Managed Instance. For more information, see UNISTR (Transact-SQL).| | || (String concatenation) and ||= (Compound assignment) syntax support GA | Azure SQL Managed Instance now supports || (String concatenation) and ||= (Compound assignment) Transact-SQL syntax. This capability is now generally available in an Azure SQL Managed Instance.|

June 2025

Changes Details
Faster management operations The duration of management operations have improved! To learn more, review Management operations overview and Management operations duration.
Invoke an HTTPS REST endpoint SP GA Use the sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint stored procedure to invoke an HTTPS REST endpoint provided as an input argument to the procedure. This feature is now generally available (GA). Review Invoke an HTTPS REST endpoint SP to learn more.
Zone redundancy for General Purpose GA Deploy your General Purpose SQL Managed Instance to multiple availability zones to improve the availability of your instance in the event of a disaster. This capability is now generally available (GA). Review Zone redundancy for General Purpose to learn more.

May 2025

Changes Details
Approximate or fuzzy string matching preview Check if two strings are similar, and calculate the difference between two strings. Use this capability to identify strings that might be different because of character corruption. This capability is currently in preview for Azure SQL Managed Instance. What is fuzzy string matching?
DATEADD number allows bigint preview For DATEADD (datepart, number, date), number can be expressed as a bigint. This capability is currently in preview for Azure SQL Managed Instance. For more information, see DATEADD (Transact-SQL).
JSON native data type GA The json data type provides new capabilities for handling semistructured data in Azure SQL Managed Instance. This data type is now generally available.
JSON aggregate functions GA Two json aggregate functions JSON_OBJECTAGG and JSON_ARRAYAGG enable construction of JSON objects or arrays based on an aggregate from SQL data. These JSON functions are now generally available.
Regular expression functions preview Regular expression (REGEX) functions return text based on values in a search pattern. This capability is currently in preview for Azure SQL Managed Instance. For more information, see Regular expressions.
TLS 1.3 support for replication GA Configure Azure SQL Managed Instance replication agents to use TLS 1.3. This capability is generally available. Review TLS 1.3 support for replication to learn more.
UNISTR (Transact-SQL) preview Azure SQL Managed Instance now supports the UNISTR T-SQL syntax for Unicode string literals. This capability is currently in preview. For more information, see UNISTR (Transact-SQL).
|| (String concatenation) and ||= (Compound assignment) syntax support preview Azure SQL Managed Instance now supports || (String concatenation) and ||= (Compound assignment) Transact-SQL syntax. This capability is currently in preview.

March 2025

Changes Details
MI link from SQL Server 2017 GA Configure a link from SQL Server 2017 to Azure SQL Managed Instance. This feature is generally available. Review Managed Instance link from SQL Server 2017 to learn more.

February 2025

Changes Details
Invoke an HTTPS REST endpoint SP preview Use the sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint stored procedure to invoke an HTTPS REST endpoint provided as an input argument to the procedure. This stored procedure is currently in preview for Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Native Windows principals GA Use the Windows authentication metadata mode to allow Windows authentication or Microsoft Entra authentication (using a Windows principal metadata) with Azure SQL Managed Instance. This feature is now generally available (GA). Review Native Windows principals to learn more.

January 2025

Changes Details
Modernization Advisor preview Use the Modernization Advisor in the Azure portal for your SQL Server on Azure VM to determine if you can save on cost or optimize your performance by migrating your workload to Azure SQL Managed Instance. This feature is currently in preview. Review Modernization Advisor to learn more.

November 2024

Changes Details
Instance pools GA Save on costs and share resources between multiple instances in a pool within a single virtual machine. A convenient and cost-efficient way to migrate smaller SQL Server instances to the cloud, and the only way to deploy a 2-vCore managed instance. Instance pools are now generally available. Review Instance pools to learn more.
Microsoft Entra nonunique name support GA 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. This feature is now generally available. For more information, see Microsoft Entra nonunique name support.

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.

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.

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