When I'm talking to people working with SQL Server, many of them are quite pleased with the platform. It solves their issues and problems. While they always wants changes and improvements, not to mention bug fixes, overall most people seem happy with their particular version. However, there's no shortage of things that are slightly broken in SQL Server, and while I appreciate the Cumulative Updates every other month, I'd like to see even more work done fixing code.

The development of SQL Server has accelerated in the last decade. After the five year span from SQL Server 2000 to 2005, we've seen new versions coming out just over every 24 months, and I expect that to continue in the future. This rapid release cycle means that many of us end up supporting 3, 4, or more versions of the platform at any one time.

We often install the latest version for new instances, often because that's the only version we can buy at the time. However we don't seem to upgrade older instances quickly. This week I'm wondering why.

What are the reasons that prevent you from migrating those 2005/2008/2012 instances to 2014?

Are there technical reasons you don't upgrade? Is it cost-related? Or is there no compelling reason to adopt the newest features and enhancements to the platform? I suspect a combination of these reasons for many of you, though I also feel the platform is very mature, and has been for many versions. The applications I run, primarily SQLServerCentral, don't really benefit from any of the features in later versions.

Let us know this week, and I'm especially interested in knowing if there are technical reasons any of you can't upgrade.