The scary part of upgrading SQL Server is finding out you have a problem AFTER the fact. In this episode, Mariano Kovo joins us to discuss the Data Migration Assistant tool from Microsoft. While the name can be a bit misleading, (What? Microsoft have confusing names—that’s a first), the major benefit to the tool is the assessment feature to alert you of potential issues when you upgrade. Issues are broken into three major categories:
- Breaking Changes
- Behavior Changes
- Deprecated Changes
While each change should be reviewed, many times we allow deprecated features to remain unresolved as they are still supported in SQL Server; however, we certainly want to put those on the backlog because one day Microsoft will finally pull the plug and we want to be ahead of the curve.
Our Guest
Mariano Kovo
I’m a Data Architect, working in technology since 1995, in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. Specialized in Microsoft SQL Server Databases from version 6.5 until today, going through all versions of the product and several of its engines. My passion for data technologies took me from my first job as a DBA Administrator to become a collaborator within Microsoft Argentina & Uruguay as a SQL Server technical specialist.
I am the co-founder of Precision IT, a technology company with a presence in Argentina and the United States, a certified partner in Microsoft, Citrix, and Dell EMC. My focus is Infrastructure Architecture, High Availability, Disaster Recovery, and Performance & tuning. Additionally, I recognize myself as an enthusiast of Microsoft Azure Cloud platform and cloud data platform technologies.
In 2010 I was co-founder of the PASS (Professional Association for SQL Server) chapter in Argentina (SQLArgentina) and which I currently represent. Since 2018 I have received the Microsoft MVP award in Data Platform for my various contributions to the community and my skills on the data platform. I am continuously participating in technical talks for Microsoft, SQL Saturdays, Universities, Microsoft User Groups, and webcasts for the community presenting official releases and specialized workshops for the community, both in Latin America and the United States.
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“[Data Migration Assistant] will tell you if you are using any instance feature that is not compatible with the destination target that you choose.”
Mariano Kovo
3 Takeaways
- Data Migration Assistant (DMA) replaces the Database Upgrade Advisor.
- DMA can create new objects in Azure SQL Database environments, but is not our preferred method to migrate databases.
- DMA can only inspect objects in the database—it won’t check ad hoc code inside the application unless you provide a trace file to review.
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