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Time to upgrade your SQL Server 2005 instance

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Last edited on 17 November 2016.

As you know, SQL Server 2005 is now over ten years old.

Microsoft has helpfully provided a list of ten reasons why you should be upgrading from SQL Server 2005.

The question is not whether you should be upgrading it (you should, by the way), but to which version? Microsoft even offers you a Comparison Chart to help you figure this out.

But let me add my thoughts here, at the very least.

SQL Server 2016 is where you want to be. Both Standard and Enterprise Edition have a number of new features that will satisfy your requirements. As of Service Pack 1, the main difference between Enterprise and Standard Editions are hardware limitations.

Aside from all the free upgrades available in SQL Server 2008, 2008 R2, 2012 and 2014, you also get temporal tables, row-level security, JSON support (which works the same as XML support), and some pretty neat Azure-powered extensions, including being able to back up your database to your local drive as well as Azure Blob Storage at the same time.

So that’s my take. Sound off in the comments.