A Microsoft partner slide put SQL Server under the heading '1st party legacy'. Brent Ozar flagged it, and a day later Microsoft said SQL Server isn't legacy. Many users saw the slide and they are already asking what it means. Here's what actually happened, what Microsoft shipped, and why that "legacy" label deserves more scrutiny than Microsoft's explanation alone.
The Slide
FabCon and SQLCon Europe ran September 28 to October 1, 2026 in Barcelona. At a partner day during the event, a slide was photographed and shared on LinkedIn. Brent posted it on September 30 in I'm Just Gonna Leave This Here.
One column reads "1st party legacy". The line under it reads "Modernize every SQL Server". Microsoft is the first party. Brent zoomed in on that pair of columns and called it what it reads like: Microsoft telling its partners that SQL Server is a legacy database.
That's a pretty significant label to put on a product that Microsoft released a new major version of less than a year ago. In enterprise IT, "legacy" generally suggests aging technology that organizations should be planning to replace or retire. It doesn't mean a supported, actively developed database platform simply because it isn't running in Azure. There's a difference, and Microsoft should know better than to blur it in a presentation to its own partners.
Image: Brent Ozar, from a slide shared on LinkedIn.
The post drew more than 40 comments. Postgres came up early. So did government and regulated shops that are required to keep data on-prem. Brent asked the obvious question -- if SQL Server is legacy, and the next step is Azure SQL DB or Fabric, what exactly are customers running in AWS supposed to do?
Microsoft's Response
On October 1, Anna Hoffman of Microsoft replied in the comments. She said the wording on the partner slide was poor, and that the two lines described separate modernization motions, not a designation of SQL Server. Then she said it plainly:
"Microsoft does not consider SQL Server a legacy product."
Brent wasn't done. He pointed back to the slide's own wording and asked Microsoft what it should have said instead. That's where the thread stands.
Both can be true. The product team can genuinely consider SQL Server a modern, actively developed platform while Microsoft's partner messaging encourages customers to move toward Azure. There's nothing inherently wrong with that strategy, but calling SQL Server "legacy" is a very different message from encouraging customers to modernize their existing deployments.
A migration strategy is not a product lifecycle announcement. Let's look at what Microsoft actually shipped.
What Microsoft Shipped
The same week, Microsoft published its SQLCon Barcelona announcements. The first section is titled "Running data and AI on infrastructure you control", and it walks through TDE in 2008, Always Encrypted in 2016, and Ledger in 2022 as decades of SQL Server investment. That is not how you talk about a legacy product. The announcements included:
SQL Server on Azure Local - GA
Both connected and disconnected operations. Disconnected means a local control plane for environments where cloud connectivity is unavailable or restricted. Microsoft pitched it squarely at digital sovereignty. That is SQL Server running on infrastructure you control. Announcement
Agent Mode for GitHub Copilot in SSMS - GA
SQL Projects and Schema Compare in SSMS went GA with it. You don't keep building out the client tool for a product you're retiring.
Azure SQL Database Hyperscale
160 and 192 vCore Premium-series GA, serverless auto-pause in preview, DiskANN vector indexes GA, and a new Azure Arc migration path to Hyperscale in preview.
Database Hub in Microsoft Fabric - Public Preview
Inventory, health, performance and security signals across your database estate, with database agents for SQL and PostgreSQL.
Read that list honestly. There is one on-prem GA and one tooling GA. The rest is Azure and Fabric. The marketing energy is pointed at the cloud, but the engine is still getting investment.
The servicing cadence tells the same story. SQL Server 2025 has had nine cumulative updates in 2026, one a month since January. CU9 (KB5122048) shipped September 15, 2026 as build 17.0.5005.3. One week earlier, security updates shipped for both the GDR branch (KB5122770) and the CU branch (KB5122769). That's an active servicing commitment to Microsoft's current database engine, not evidence of a product being phased out.
The Support Calendar Doesn't Say Legacy
Slides change. Lifecycle commitments are published. These are straight from Microsoft Learn:
| Version | Mainstream End |
Extended End |
|---|---|---|
| SQL Server 2025 | 1/7/2031 | 1/7/2036 |
| SQL Server 2022 | 1/12/2028 | 1/12/2033 |
| SQL Server 2019 | 3/1/2025 | 1/9/2030 |
| SQL Server 2017 | 10/12/2022 | 10/13/2027 |
Microsoft Learn lists each end date at 6:59:59 AM Pacific Time.
SQL Server 2025 is supported into 2036. That's a decade of committed patches for the version that shipped last November. Whatever the slide meant, that date is the one your contracts and your compliance people care about.
The calendar that actually matters right now is the other end. SQL Server 2016 reached end of support on July 14, 2026. SQL Server 2017 is next, in October 2027, and Brent posted a one-year countdown on October 12. If you're running either one, that is your legacy problem. Not the slide.
Know Where You Stand
Run this on each instance. It returns the version and current update level, so you can line it up against the table above.
SELECT
@@SERVERNAME ServerName,
CASE PARSENAME(CAST(SERVERPROPERTY('ProductVersion') AS NVARCHAR(128)), 4)
WHEN '17' THEN 'SQL Server 2025'
WHEN '16' THEN 'SQL Server 2022'
WHEN '15' THEN 'SQL Server 2019'
WHEN '14' THEN 'SQL Server 2017'
WHEN '13' THEN 'SQL Server 2016'
WHEN '12' THEN 'SQL Server 2014'
WHEN '11' THEN 'SQL Server 2012'
ELSE 'Older - check ProductVersion' END VersionName,
SERVERPROPERTY('ProductVersion') ProductVersion,
SERVERPROPERTY('ProductLevel') ProductLevel,
SERVERPROPERTY('ProductUpdateLevel') UpdateLevel,
SERVERPROPERTY('Edition') Edition;
Anything that comes back 2016 or older is already out of support. Anything that comes back 2017 has about a year. If it comes back 2025, compare ProductVersion against the build list. Mine says CU7. At the time of writing, the latest is CU9, 17.0.5005.3. Even a supported version can be behind. Start there.
If You're Not in Azure
A lot of SQL Server runs on-prem, in colos, and on AWS. None of those customers were in the room for that partner slide. All of them will hear about it.
Brent asked what AWS customers are supposed to do. AWS already answered. On July 21, 2026, Amazon RDS for SQL Server added SQL Server 2025 for Enterprise, Standard, and Developer editions. Existing RDS instances can upgrade by modifying the DB engine version. AWS supporting Microsoft's latest SQL Server release reinforces something that shouldn't need explaining: running SQL Server outside Azure doesn't make it legacy.
My advice to clients is simple. Don't make a platform decision off a partner slide or a blog comment. Make it off the lifecycle dates, your licensing, your RPO/RTO, and what your applications actually support. If that leads to Azure, fine. If it leads to SQL Server 2025 on the hardware you already own, Microsoft has committed to supporting that product through January 2036.
Microsoft is entitled to promote its cloud platforms, and customers are entitled to choose something else. What shouldn't get lost in that conversation is the distinction between modernizing a SQL Server environment and replacing SQL Server because someone decided to call it legacy.
SQL Server isn't legacy. SQL Server 2016 is.
More to Read
Brent Ozar: I'm Just Gonna Leave This Here
Microsoft: SQLCon Barcelona 2026 announcements
Microsoft: SQL Server on Azure Local is now generally available
Microsoft Learn: SQL Server 2025 build versions
Microsoft Learn: SQL Server 2025 lifecycle
Microsoft: SQL Server 2016 end of support is here
Brent Ozar: SQL Server 2017 Support Ends One Year From Today
AWS: Amazon RDS for SQL Server now supports SQL Server 2025
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