What's new in Azure SQL Database?
Applies to: 
Azure SQL Database
This article summarizes the documentation changes associated with new features and improvements in the recent releases of Azure SQL Database. For more information about Azure SQL Database, see What is Azure SQL Database?.
Preview
The following table lists the features of Azure SQL Database 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. What is fuzzy string matching? |
| DATEADD number allows bigint | For DATEADD (datepart , number , date ), number can be expressed as a bigint. For more information, see DATEADD (Transact-SQL). |
| Elastic queries | The elastic queries feature allows for cross-database queries in Azure SQL Database. |
| Elastic transactions | Elastic transactions allow you to execute transactions distributed among cloud databases in Azure SQL Database. |
| Fixed server roles | To simplify permission management, Azure SQL Database provides a set of fixed server-level roles to help you manage the permissions on a logical server. |
| Import and export using Private Link | You can import or export an Azure SQL Database using private link. Leave Allow Access to Azure Services off when you import or export a database using a service-managed endpoint. |
| JSON native data type | The new json data type and JSON aggregate functions provide new capabilities for handling semistructured data in Azure SQL Database. For more information, see JSON Type and aggregates preview. |
| JSON aggregate functions | Two new json aggregate functions JSON_OBJECTAGG and JSON_ARRAYAGG enable construction of JSON objects or arrays based on an aggregate from SQL data. For more information, see JSON Type and aggregates preview. |
| Microsoft Entra server principals | The ability to create server principals (logins) for Microsoft Entra identities in Azure SQL Database is in preview. |
| Regular expression functions | Regular expression (REGEX) functions return text based on values in a search pattern. Regular expressions. |
| Query editor in the Azure portal | The query editor in the Azure portal allows you to run queries against your Azure SQL Database directly from a web browser. |
| Regular expression functions | Regular expression (REGEX) functions return text based on values in a search pattern. Regular expressions. |
| UNISTR (Transact-SQL) | Azure SQL Database now supports the UNISTR T-SQL syntax for Unicode string literals. For more information, see UNISTR (Transact-SQL). |
| || (String concatenation) and ||= (Compound assignment) syntax support | Azure SQL Database now supports || (String concatenation) and ||= (Compound assignment) Transact-SQL syntax. |
General availability (GA)
The following table lists features of Azure SQL Database that have been made generally available (GA) within the last 12 months:
| Feature | GA Month | Details |
|---|---|---|
| sys.dm_database_backups | February 2025 | The sys.dm_database_backups DMV returns information about the automated backups of a database. |
| Hyperscale support for database and file shrink | January 2025 | Database and file shrink commands are now generally available for Azure SQL Database Hyperscale. For more information, see the Shrink in Hyperscale Generally Available blog post. |
| 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 Database that have nonunique names. |
| Lower auto-pause delay for serverless | October 2024 | Reduce costs by lowering the auto-pause delay for serverless compute in Azure SQL Database. Learn more about the auto-pause delay for serverless. |
| Hyperscale elastic pools | September 2024 | Manage and scale multiple Hyperscale databases in Azure SQL Database by using Hyperscale elastic pools. |
| Hyperscale elastic pool maintenance window support | September 2024 | You can configure a non-default maintenance window for a Hyperscale elastic pool. For more information, read Blog: Maintenance window support for Azure SQL Database Hyperscale elastic pools. |
| CURRENT_DATE | August 2024 | 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. |
| Maintenance window support for named replicas | August 2024 | Maintenance window support for named replicas is now generally available. For more information, see General Availability: Maintenance window support for Azure SQL Database Hyperscale named replica. |
| Maintenance window support for Hyperscale | August 2024 | Maintenance window support for Hyperscale databases is now generally available. |
| Automatic backups on secondary replicas | August 2024 | Mitigate the performance impact on your workload by taking automated backups from the non-readable secondary replica in the Business Critical service tier. |
| Database compatibility level 160 is now default | June 2024 | Database compatibility level 160 is now the default for new databases created in Azure SQL Database. For more information on this announcement, see General availability: Database compatibility level 160 in Azure SQL Database. |
| Hyperscale named replica zone redundant support | June 2024 | Zone redundancy support for Hyperscale named replicas is now generally available. For more information, see Hyperscale secondary replicas. |
| License-free standby replica | May 2024 | Save on licensing costs by configuring your secondary database replica for disaster recovery standby. |
| Elastic jobs | April 2024 | Elastic jobs, now generally available, are the SQL Server Agent replacement for Azure SQL Database. Elastic jobs now support Microsoft Entra ID authentication, private endpoints, management via REST APIs, Azure Alerts, and more new features since preview began. |
| Maintenance window advance notifications | March 2024 | Advance notifications are now generally available for databases configured to use a nondefault maintenance window. |
| Azure SQL triggers for Azure Functions | March 2024 | Azure Functions supports function triggers for Azure SQL Database. |
| Serverless Hyperscale | February 2024 | Automatically scale your Hyperscale databases up and down based on usage when using the serverless compute tier. |
Documentation changes
Learn about significant changes to the Azure SQL Database documentation. For previous years, see the What's new archive.
February 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. What is fuzzy string matching? |
| DATEADD number allows bigint (preview) | For DATEADD (datepart , number , date ), number can be expressed as a bigint. For more information, see DATEADD (Transact-SQL). |
| Regular expression functions (preview) | Regular expression (REGEX) functions return text based on values in a search pattern. For more information, see Regular expressions. |
| sys.dm_database_backups | The sys.dm_database_backups dynamic management view returns information about the automated backups of a database. This DMV is now generally available. |
| Import bacpac file size increase | The limit for an imported bacpac file size has been increased from 4 GB to 150 GB. For more information on importing a bacpac file generated from SqlPackage, see Quickstart: Import a bacpac file to a database in Azure SQL Database. |
January 2025
| Changes | Details |
|---|---|
| Hyperscale support for database and file shrink | Database and file shrink commands are now generally available for Azure SQL Database Hyperscale. For more information, see the Shrink in Hyperscale Generally Available blog post. |
Archive
For previous updates, see the What's new archive.