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Looking for Feedback on SQL Server 2017
Hi All, I am trying to convince my director that we should upgrade to SQL Server 2017 instead of SQL Server 2016. If some of you would take the time to respond with feedback of your own experience with SQL Server 2017, it would be greatly appreciated. I am looking for any positive and/or negative comments from those of you already using SQL Server 2017 in a production environment to run some or all of your business applications. Thank you! Mike
Does the director have reasons for wanting SQL2016, as opposed to SQL2017? If so I'd look to understand those.
Thank you for the response, Kev. My director has no special preference for SQL 2016. We had originally planned the upgrade to 2016 over a year ago and the project got pushed all the way to Q1 of 2018, so we decided to recommend SQL 2017 instead. His only concern is whether 2017 is stable enough yet. He does not want to be on the "bleeding" edge. Are you using SQL 2017 at your company yet?
Mike, thanks for clarifying the rationale above. I don't 'have' SQL2017 as I'm an independent consultant, but I certainly get asked the same questions about which version people should move to. My take on this is: - I see no reason to NOT go with the latest version if you are sure that all the applications will support it (this is key if you have 3rd party apps) - For any new development I would insist on it being the latest version - If you buy licensing now, you are buying the SQL2017 licence, and although you can downgrade, why would you? You've paid for it so use it! - Microsoft is cloud-first - which means that they release features to SQL Azure first, long before they make it into the boxed product. So SQL2017 has been road tested by a lot of customers running in Azure (even if they did not realise) - this makes the on-premise version much less bleeding-edge than people think - There's already talk of SQL2018, so at some point next year SQL 2017 could become the 'previous' version I know you said the director doesn't have specific reasons for SQL 2016, but he does have this fear of being bleeding edge - that's what you need to work on. If you can break that barrier down by showing that this isn't some kind of beta release, he'll be happier knowing that you are upgrading to the 'latest' release. There's a difference! To answer your question directly - no I'm not supporting any customers that currently have SQL 2017, but all those that installed a new version or did an upgrade in the last 12 months went to the latest version at that time - it just so happens they where all completed prior to October.
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