I am trying something new and going to provide some quick updates on topics I discuss with customers or new items I’ve come across each given week. These are going to be less formal and if you’d like to continue receiving these please follow along with this blog.
SSMS
SQL Sever Management Studio, this one I honestly have not touched in years and rather switched to Azure Data Studio ; however, if you’ve paid attention then you may realize the recent announcement of Microsoft’s plan to deprecate Azure Data Studio in February 2026.
Part of the reason I preferred Azure Data Studio is the source control integration and similar experience to VS Code it offered. Well the long term plan is that Azure Data Studio will be a VS Code plug in. I mean that’s not a huge surprise and honestly I already was using the SQL Project extension. The surprising part I did not realize is that starting in SSMS v21 there is git support.
Even adding on top of that SSMS will have it’s own dedicated CoPilot to help data developers write T-SQL queries.
Microsoft.Build.Sql
Staying in the SQL world there is the long awaited release of Micorsoft.Build.Sql which will allow for SDK style deployments for your SQL Projects. This is something that has been a long time coming and something which I have walked through in my blog series on the Microsoft site: https://aka.ms/cicdsql.
I do think this will the future way developers will manage associated database projects for their applications. If you haven’t taken the time to read the blog series or announcement I would highly encourage you to.
what-if update pushed
The much anticipate fix to the azure cli command what-if has now been rolled out. This issue has been open for several years as it would prevent users from creating accurate deployment plans, including additions, changes, deletions, in their ARM/Bicep deployments.
azd and ADE
Did you know the azure developer cli (azd) and Azure Deployment Environments (ADE) has documentation and guidance out there on how to convert azd projects to Azure Deployment Environments? Azure Deployment Environments is something I have written about and spoken at conferences in the past.
It is great to see both development tools start to blend together as personally I see azd helping with initial project creation; however, ADE would be how development teams, at scale, in regulated environments be able to continuously develop.
For full details check out the articles.