Background

Historically, Microsoft has used a combination of General Distribution Releases (GDRs), Cumulative Updates (CUs), and Service Packs (SPs) to update major SQL Server releases (which Microsoft refers to as servicing SQL Server). When a new major version of SQL Server reaches the general availability (GA) milestone, the servicing sequence for the original RTM branch begins. Typically, CUs are released every eight weeks, and they are a rollup of hotfixes and minor new features or feature improvements. GDRs only contain security hotfixes, and they are meant for organizations who want less software churn from SQL Server

Roughly a year after GA, Microsoft would release SP1 for that version of SQL Server. Organizations had the choice of staying on the RTM branch (which would continue to get CUs for about another year) or moving to the newer SP1 branch of the product (which would get its own CUs every eight weeks, and GDRs as needed). Roughly two years after GA, Microsoft would release SP2 for that version of SQL Server, which would start a new servicing branch with GDRs and CUs. The release of SP2 would halt the servicing of the RTM branch, which would then become an “unsupported SP”.

This has been the pattern since SQL Server 2005, so organizations should be pretty familiar with this old model.

Modern Servicing Model

The new servicing model will only use CUs and GDRs, there will be no more SPs. CUs will now have localized content (which was a big differentiator between CUs and SPs in the past). There will be a CU released every month for the first twelve months after GA, then changing to a new CU release every quarter for the next four years. New CUs will be delivered the week of the 3rd Tuesday of the month where they are released. About every twelve months, a slipstream-media CU will be released, which will let you install something like SQL Server 2017 with CU12 in one install instead of having to install SQL Server 2017 GA and then doing a separate install of SQL Server 2017 CU12.

Organizations will have to choose whether they will be on the “GDR Train” or the “CU Train”. If they are on the GDR Train and decide to install a CU, there is no going back to the GDR Train. Personally, I think it will be much better for most organizations to be on the CU Train, so that they get the benefit of hotfixes and feature improvements that will show up in CUs. Microsoft also advises organizations to proactively deploy CUs after they become available (after suitable internal testing).

You will need to be on a CU that is less than roughly 24 months old to be in a fully supported state from Microsoft (which is pretty similar to the current support window). Five years after GA, CU servicing will end as that version of SQL Server falls out of mainstream support, with only security fixes being available for the next five years, until that version of SQL Server falls out of extended support.

Premium Assurance 

After that, you can extend support for six more years with SQL Server Premium Assurance. Premium Assurance is somewhat pricey, with a sliding price scale that increases depending on when you purchase it. For SQL Server Enterprise Edition, it would currently cost $394.00 per core license, going up to $675.00 per core license if you purchased it after July 2019. Premium Assurance is available for SQL Server 2008 and later.

In most cases, I would much rather have moved to a newer version of SQL Server long before I ever had to think about using Premium Assurance, but for those situations where you have a mission critical legacy application that requires an ancient version of SQL Server, it is nice to at least have the option for a longer support period.

Microsoft’s official announcement about this change is covered in even more depth here.

The post Modern SQL Server Servicing Model appeared first on Glenn Berry.

As you may know, I have previously talked about how the Cumulative Updates (CU) for the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) and the Service Pack 1 (SP1) branches of SQL Server 2012 are “out of synch”, with the latest release for the RTM branch happening about one month sooner than the roughly equivalent CU for the SP1 branch. You can see this by looking at Table 1 and comparing the release dates for the recent CUs for both branches.

Table 1: SQL Server 2012 Cumulative Updates

According to my source, Microsoft “will stop doing CUs for SQL 2012 RTM in line with the policy of 12 months + SQL 2012 SP1 release (Nov 2012). It is a rough date so the last RTM CU is likely in October sometime.”  That means that the last SQL Server 2012 RTM CU will probably be CU10, released around October 21, 2013. SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 2 is likely to be released in the October/November 2013 timeframe (my guess). The Microsoft lifecycle policy for SQL Server 2012 shows that mainstream support for SQL Server 2012 RTM will end on January 14, 2014.

This means that if you are still on the RTM branch (perhaps because the latest hotfixes are showing up one month earlier than in the SP1 branch) when SP2 is released, you will still be supported until January 14, 2014. These latest fixes from the RTM branch are also supposed to show up in a supported branch (SP1 or SP2) by January 14, 2014. This clarification alleviates my concern that someone might be in a non-supported configuration for a period of time until the SP1 and SP2 branches reached relative parity with the RTM branch.

These two Microsoft KB articles are useful references that you might want to bookmark, since they list and link each CU (and they are updated as new CUs are released).

The SQL Server 2012 builds that were released after SQL Server 2012 was released

The SQL Server 2012 builds that were released after SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 was released

You might want to read Making the Case for Regular SQL Server Servicing to understand why I think it is a good idea to keep your SQL Server instances properly maintained.

The post Clarification of Microsoft’s SQL Server 2012 Servicing and Support Policy appeared first on Glenn Berry.