Microsoft made SQL Server 2019 generally available on November 4 as part of its first round of announcements for the relational database at Ignite, also introducing improved data intelligence for enterprises. A few days before that, the tech giant brought enhanced disaster recovery benefits to all supported releases of SQL Server.
Now, Microsoft has unveiled SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 18.4, with the latest version bringing full support for SQL Server 2019. Additionally, sqlpackage v18.4 has also been released, offering general availability for cross-platform support for the software.
As far as SSMS is concerned, these are the new capabilities that have been introduced:
- SQL Management Objects and scripting
- Supports the script of a materialized view in SQL Data Warehouse
- Data classification
- Added support for a custom information protection policy for data classification
- Query store
- Added the “Max plan per query” value in the dialog properties
- Added support for the new custom capture policies
Bug fixes implemented for various components of the SQL infrastructure management environment are as follows:
- Object Explorer
- Fixed an issue where dropping an Azure SQL Database in Object Explorer was showing an inaccurate error message.
- SQL Agent
- Fixed an issue where the agent operator UI would not update the operator name when it was changed in the UI and it wouldn’t be scripted. See the feedback forum to learn more.
- General SQL Server Management Studio
- Fixed a long outstanding issue where SQL Server Management Studio wasn’t honoring the connection information passed at the command line when SQL files were also specified.
- Mitigated the removal of the -P command line option by having SQL Server Management Studio look at its cache of credentials. If the required credential was found, the connection would be established using it.
- Fixed a crash in SQL Server Management Studio while trying to display securables on “Replication Filter” objects.
- Query result
- Fixed an issue introduced in SQL Server Management Studio 18.3.1, where grids would be drawn slightly too narrow and show “…” at the end of the longest string in every column.
- SQL Management Objects and scripting
- Fixed an issue when “Script table as…” for SQL Data Warehouse whose collation was Japanese_BIN2 wasn’t working.
- Fixed an issue where ScriptAlter() ended up executing the statements on the server.
- Import flat file
- Fixed an issue where “Import flat file” functionality wasn’t handling text qualifiers correctly.
- Replication tools
- Fixed an issue that was causing the application to throw an error (“Could not load file or assembly…”) when trying to edit SQL Agent jobs
With the latest release of sqlpackage, meanwhile, new features include:
- Added support to deploy to Azure SQL Data Warehouse
- Added support for new Azure database editions including GeneralPurpose, BusinessCritical, and Hyperscale
- Added Azure SQL Database Managed Instance support for Azure Active Directory users and groups
- Supports the /AccessToken parameter for sqlpackage on .NET Core
- Removed SHA1code signing
You can learn more about the command-line utility here, and view detailed release notes for version 18.4 here. For those interested, the latest release can be downloaded here. More information on SSMS 18.4 can be obtained here, while it can be downloaded here.