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If your SQL Server is 2016 or older, fire up the coffee maker and start migration planning!
If your production SQL Servers are still running 2016 (or older) you're basically banking on inertia. Sure, it's been stable. But that doesn’t guarantee it’ll stay safe or compliant.
Microsoft shut off mainstream support for 2016 back in July 2022, and extended support ends in July 2026. Beyond that? You’re on your own for bug fixes, security updates, or emergency patches.
What You’re Missing
It’s easy to view upgrades as optional enhancements; in truth, staying current is about maintaining resilience. What you gain with 2019/2022 isn’t just bells and whistles. It’s reliability, defensive tools, and measurable performance.
Smarter Engines Under the Hood
“Better defaults” are no marketing fluff. From improvements in memory grants, parallelism, and hash joins, newer SQL Servers are tuned to make your workload more efficient out-of-the-box.
Adaptive Behavior Without Rewrites
Here’s where SQL Server 2019 and 2022 quietly earn their keep. Microsoft invested heavily in the Intelligent Query Processing (IQP) stack - features that make your existing code run better without touching a line of T-SQL (most of the time).
Older versions execute queries based on a single snapshot of estimated data volume, join paths, and parameter values. If those estimates are off (and they often are), the engine makes bad choices and never looks back. The newer engines don’t do that anymore.
Adaptive joins can switch between nested loop and hash join strategies while the query runs, based on how much data actually flows through. That means fewer “query plans from hell” when parameter values swing wildly between executions.
Interleaved execution gives the optimizer a second chance - especially for multi-statement table-valued functions. Instead of assuming a generic row count of “1,” SQL Server now runs the first statement, learns the real cardinality, and uses that for the rest of the plan.
Table variable deferred compilation fixes one of the longest-standing developer pain points. Instead of guessing that a table variable has exactly one row (which breaks most real-world queries), the engine waits until the table is populated, measures it, and builds an informed plan.
And if your code uses scalar user-defined functions , SQL Server 2019+ can inline them, turning what used to be a loop into a set-based operation. That alone can turn a 5-minute report into a 5-second one.
The beauty here is that you may not need to rewrite or refactor anything. You just get smarter plans, more consistent performance, and less time spent chasing parameter sniffing ghosts. All of the above have limitations. Do your homework and proper testing.
Faster Recovery & Safer Rollbacks
Ever had a long-running rollback or crash recovery hang your system? Accelerated Database Recovery (ADR) changes the game—making rollbacks and crash recoveries significantly faster, which is a safety net when things go sideways.
Query Store on Steroids
In older versions, you’d turn on Query Store, fiddle with settings, maybe capture plan regressions. In newer versions, it’s more mature, more integrated, and more automatic. You get insights, forced plan control, and regression protection with minimal overhead.
Security That Doesn’t Feel Optional
TDE, always encrypted, ledger capabilities (in 2022), granular auditing - these aren’t checkboxes anymore, they’re baseline expectations. Newer versions make it less painful to stay compliant and secure.
Hybrid & Cloud-Aware by Design
Backup to URL, cross-environment DR, and more. The newer SQL Server versions are built from the ground up to span on-prem, cloud, or hybrid without the constant “lift and re-architect” panic.
Predictability & Fewer Surprises
2019 and 2022 have been battle-tested at this point. Most of the early-stage regressions, bugs, or inconsistent behaviors have been discovered and addressed in the Cumulative Updates. That predictability is worth its weight in gold when you’re managing risk.
The Bottom Line
Stable isn’t the same as safe. SQL Server 2016 had a great run, but it’s time to let it retire gracefully.
Plan your move to 2019 or 2022 this quarter. Skip 2025 for now. You’ll sleep better.
Need Migration Help?
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SQL tidBITs:
Check out Brent Ozar’s take on which SQL Server versions make sense today. His reasoning helps frame the trade-offs in a way engineers and execs can both nod at: Which Version of SQL Server Should You Use?
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