Why Not Upgrading Could Be Risky for Your Data

Last month my oldest son was in a minor fender-bender. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

“I’m sorry to hear that, but what does this have to do with upgrading SQL Server 2008?”

Bear with me; I’m almost there.

Driving with Old Technology

My son was driving with his wonderful girlfriend in his 2006 Toyota Avalon when the accident occurred. The Avalon, one of Toyota’s premier models, is considered safe, reliable, and even has some luxurious features not found in most cars. The seats are air-conditioned, which can be a fun surprise for those who haven’t previously experienced cool air on their dairy aires.

With a 5-star safety rating, his car was designed to be safe. Included were front and side impact airbags, specially designed seatbelt tensioners to ensure a correct fit for the occupants, and of course anti-lock brakes.

Still, with all that, the car is 13 years old, and a lot has changed in the past 13 years. The new Avalons have a Pre-Collision Detection System that can alert drivers of a potential impact and even apply the brakes automatically. Newer models will also warn drivers if they slowly drift out of their lane and will make steering corrections for them. Those are pretty major safety improvements, improvements that may have helped my son avoid a collision.

Driving Your Business with Old Technology

Many companies are still driving their data in older database models. SQL Server 2008 is still the prevalent database version for many organizations, which, like my son’s car, was good in its day.

A Lot Has Improved in SQL Server in the Past 10 Years

But, a lot has changed in the SQL Server world over the past 10 years. The current version, SQL Server 2017, has a ton of features that improve performance and reliability. New features and capabilities were added as well. The Query Store was introduced in 2016 and improved in 2017 with the introduction of Automatic Plan Correction. Other things that weren’t available in 2008 include an in-memory OLTP engine, temporal tables to record data changes, and support for R Services and Python for statistical analysis of data.

Mainstream support has long ended for SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2, and extended support will end next summer (July 9, 2019). SQL Server 2012 fell out of mainstream support in 2017 and SQL Server 2014 will end mainstream support on July 9, 2019.

The Risk of Not Upgrading

I was fortunate that the 13-year-old car protected my son and his girlfriend from injury. However, his car was considered a total loss by the insurance company so he’s scrambling to figure out his next step.

Don’t let that happen to your database servers. Upgrade your instances to at least SQL Server 2016, preferably 2017, and benefit from the performance and reliability enhancements of the past decade. Glenn Berry has a great article about how recent developments in SQL Server, operating systems, and hardware are creating an ideal time to upgrade.

But It Takes Time and Effort

Not sure where to start? Don’t have the time to add yet another project to your long list of #1 Priorities?

I get it. But trust me on this one. We’ve already helped many of our clients upgrade and I’m sure you’ll find the peace of mind that comes with the newer version to be well worth the effort.