Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Ends

This year marks the end of support for many Microsoft products, and the latest to join the list is SQL Server 2016, which reached the end of its life cycle on July 14 after ten years of support. Microsoft is urging users to upgrade to a newer version to keep their data secure.

End of Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2016

After reminding users that support for several versions of Windows will end in October, Microsoft announced that the time has come for SQL Server 2016 to no longer receive updates.

The database engine was launched in June 2016 and saw the end of its "mainstream" updates, which include new features, in 2021. By July 14, it reached the end of the extended support period, during which only security updates or critical bug fixes were issued.

Microsoft acknowledges that SQL Server 2016 is still widely used by companies and recommends upgrading to a newer version, such as SQL Server 2022 or 2025, or purchasing an Extended Security Updates (ESU) package to continue receiving security updates if upgrading is not feasible. Among the options is also migrating to one of the various database services hosted on Azure.

The end of security updates means there will no longer be protection against new attacks and vulnerabilities that may be discovered, which puts corporate data at risk. For this reason, it is necessary to plan a migration to more up-to-date and still-supported solutions.