Well, not really the end. I doubt anyone running SQL Server 2019 is going to stop (or upgrade) just because mainstream support ended. Actually, I wonder how many of you know that SQL Server 2019 passed out of mainstream support on Feb 28, 2025. I do think the 6 or 7 of you running Big Data Clusters likely knew this was the end of any support.

I saw a report in the Register on this, which includes a survey of which versions are still running. This is from an IT asset firm and matches Brent Ozar's Population report. 44% of you are running SQL Server 2019, which is the largest percentage. Since there's an additional 32% of you running versions older than 2019, I'm sure that upgrading isn't a priority.

It seems like just a couple of years ago that SQL Server 2019 was released. At the end of February Microsoft ended mainstream support for this version. There will still be security fixes released, but no more cumulative updates. The Register says if you don't upgrade, you might run into a bug and not get a fix (unless you buy extended support), but that's never worried me. If I haven't hit a bug 5 years in (or likely 3-4years after my last upgrade), I'm not too worried. If I run into something it's likely from new code and I'll just change the code to work around the issue.

I do expect to run a database platform for a decade, and I am glad that Microsoft continues to supply security patches for this period. While I certainly want every database firewalled, reducing the attack surface area of known vulnerabilities is good. I also find myself less concerned about the security of older versions. If there is a big security vulnerability discovered in 2017 tomorrow that exists in previous version and I had a 2012 server, I'd just prioritize an upgrade then.

Upgrades are hard, eat a lot of valuable time, and don't necessarily provide many benefits. Most applications tend to use basic CRUD features and whatever was available at the time in that version. If I use a tally table to split strings in 2017, I'm unlikely to rewrite that code to use STRING_SPLIT with an ordinal if I upgrade to 2022. That certainly isn't a selling point for me to upgrade. My boss knows that isn't something we'd take advantage of in older code.

I'm not a bleeding edge person, and I wouldn't push for upgrades. If you want to stay somewhat current with versions and are running 2019, I'd be waiting to test my application on SQL Server 2025 at the end of the year or early 2026. If I were mandated to stay current, I'd still be doing that, not jumping to 2022 right now. However, I do recommend that everyone patch their systems with cumulative updates to ensure their security is up to date. There have been several security patches in the past few years that you should have applied and if you haven't, this is a reminder to do so soon.