Cloud SQL for SQL Server release notes

This page documents production updates to Cloud SQL for SQL Server. You can check this page for announcements about new or updated features, bug fixes, known issues, and deprecated functionality.

You can see the latest product updates for all of Google Cloud on the Google Cloud page, browse and filter all release notes in the Google Cloud console, or programmatically access release notes in BigQuery.

To get the latest product updates delivered to you, add the URL of this page to your feed reader, or add the feed URL directly: https://cloud.google.com/feeds/cloud-sql-server-release-notes.xml

April 09, 2024

The following Gemini in Databases features are now available in Public Preview:

  • Database Center: an AI-assisted dashboard that gives you one centralized view across your entire database fleet.
  • Cloud SQL Studio: lets authorized users interact directly with the SQL database and run SQL queries from the Google Cloud console to access and manipulate data.
  • 9 new database insight recommendations.

To learn how to enable and activate Gemini in Databases, see Set up Gemini in Databases.

April 02, 2024

You can now use SSL mode instead of the legacy require_ssl setting to specify the encryption requirements for connections to your Cloud SQL for SQL Server instances. For more information, see Enforce SSL/TLS encryption.

March 25, 2024

You can now use Private Service Connect to connect to a Cloud SQL for SQL Server instance. This solution allows you to connect to the instance from multiple VPC networks that belong to different groups, teams, projects, or organizations.

Private Service Connect includes support for cross-region read replicas. You can also choose an availability type (REGIONAL or ZONAL) for Private Service Connect-enabled instances.

All features are in GA.

March 14, 2024

A new maintenance version rollout is currently underway for all supported SQL Server versions.

If you have configured a maintenance window for your instance, then the updates will occur according to the timeframe that you set in the window. Otherwise, the updates will occur within the next few weeks. The new maintenance version is [SQL Server version].R20240216.01_RC00.

To learn how to check your maintenance version, see Self-service maintenance. To find your maintenance window or to manage maintenance updates, see Find and set maintenance windows.

March 13, 2024

Cloud SQL now supports SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) on your instances. For more information, see Use SSRS for creating reports.

March 05, 2024

You can now upgrade your Cloud SQL instances to use the new network architecture to get additional capabilities not available in the old network architecture. For more information, see Upgrade an instance to the new network architecture.

February 09, 2024

Cloud SQL now automatically updates your read replicas when you perform self-service maintenance on the primary instance. For more information, see Self-service maintenance.

February 01, 2024

You can now use Private Service Connect to connect to a Cloud SQL for SQL Server instance. This solution allows you to connect to the instance from multiple VPC networks that belong to different groups, teams, projects, or organizations.

You can also choose an availability type (REGIONAL or ZONAL) for Private Service Connect-enabled instances.

All features are in Preview. For more information, see Connect to an instance using Private Service Connect.

January 31, 2024

Support for africa-south1 (Johannesburg) region.

November 15, 2023

Cloud SQL supports the bulk insert functionality of SQL Server for importing data. This functionality is supported only on SQL Server 2022.

For more information, see Use bulk insert for importing data.

October 17, 2023

You can now import transaction log backups. This can help you reduce downtime when migrating to Cloud SQL using backups.

October 09, 2023

The cross db ownership chaining flag is deprecated for all SQL Server versions.

For cross-database access, use the Microsoft tutorial for signing stored procedures with a certificate.

September 26, 2023

Cloud SQL supports the preview version of the enable-high-availability recommender. This service proactively generates recommendations that help you bring your important instances within SLA by providing data redundancy. This might be helpful during a zonal outage or when an instance runs out of memory. For more information, see Improve instance reliability by enabling high availability.

September 19, 2023

Support for me-central2 (Dammam) region.

August 22, 2023

Support for europe-west10 (Berlin) region.

August 17, 2023

August 03, 2023

Cloud SQL now supports multiple categories of API rate quotas. Rate quotas for each category are imposed per minute, per project, per region, and per user. For more information about rate quotas for each category, see Quotas and limits.

The Cloud SQL Node.js Language Connector is now available for public preview.

July 18, 2023

Cloud SQL now supports default maintenance windows for your instances. With this release, an instance without a user-specified maintenance window is maintained outside of the typical business hours for the time zone that the instance is deployed in.

July 06, 2023

Cloud SQL now supports non-RFC 1918 IP address ranges, including privately used public IP addresses. This enables you to create instances and replicas in a non-RFC 1918 IP address range. Additionally, you can connect to an instance from an application that is running in a non-RFC 1918 IP address range.

June 26, 2023

Cloud SQL now supports SQL Server 2022. The default version continues to be SQL Server 2019 Standard. For more information, see Database versions and version policies.

June 07, 2023

You can now import and export differential database backups. This can help you import and export data more frequently, reducing migration downtime.

June 02, 2023

A vulnerability was recently discovered in Cloud SQL for SQL Server that allowed customer administrator accounts to create triggers in the tempdb database and use those to gain sysadmin privileges in the instance. The sysadmin privileges would give the attacker access to system databases and partial access to the machine running that SQL Server instance.

Google Cloud resolved the issue by patching the security vulnerability by March 1, 2023. Google Cloud didn't find any compromised customer instances.

For instructions and more details, see the Cloud SQL security bulletin.

May 16, 2023

The Cloud SQL Proxy Operator is now generally available. To learn more about the Cloud SQL Proxy Operator, see About the Cloud SQL Proxy Operator.

May 15, 2023

You can now use the point-in-time-recovery (PITR) feature and read replicas on the same primary instance. For more information, see Point-in-time Recovery.

May 02, 2023

You can now disable simultaneous multithreading (SMT) while creating or editing instances and read replicas. This might reduce your SQL Server licensing fees. To understand the impact of disabling SMT on your instance's performance, we recommend that you perform load testing on your instance.

March 30, 2023

Support for me-central1 (Doha) region.

March 28, 2023

The changes in the September 15, 2022 Release Notes entry for read replica maintenance are now available. Cloud SQL read replicas follow the maintenance settings for the primary instance, including the maintenance window, rescheduling, and the deny maintenance period. During the maintenance event, Cloud SQL maintains the replicas before maintaining the primary instance. For more information, see How does maintenance affect read replicas?

Cloud SQL now exposes 38 new metrics. These metrics improve observability of Cloud SQL for SQL Server instances, helping you investigate performance issues and resource bottlenecks. You can find these metrics in the Metrics explorer within the Monitoring dashboard.

For more information about these metrics, see Cloud SQL Metrics.

March 27, 2023

Cloud SQL now supports the Linked Servers functionality of SQL Server. You can use this capability to integrate data from multiple sources and distribute queries across multiple servers. To learn more, see About linked servers.

The Cloud SQL Active Directory (AD) Diagnosis tool helps you troubleshoot issues that you might face while connecting to AD-enabled Cloud SQL for SQL Server instances, using an on-premises AD domain.

March 23, 2023

Support for europe-west12 (Turin) region.

February 28, 2023

Cloud SQL now supports the ability to get details for a Cloud SQL user for a database instance using the API or gcloud. To learn more about the new method, see Cloud SQL Admin API REST Resource.

February 24, 2023

The Cloud SQL Proxy Operator is now available in public preview. The Cloud SQL Proxy Operator is an open-source Kubernetes operator that automates connecting workloads in a GKE cluster to Cloud SQL databases. To learn more about the Cloud SQL Proxy Operator, see About the Cloud SQL Proxy Operator.

February 08, 2023

The Cloud SQL Auth proxy is a utility for ensuring secure connections to your Cloud SQL instances. The v2 release offers improvements in performance, stability, and telemetry. Among the new features, there's support for:

We recommend all customers upgrade to v2 and have released a migration guide. For more information, see Cloud SQL Auth proxy.

February 02, 2023

Cloud SQL supports the preview version of the Underprovisioned instance recommender. This service helps you avoid bottlenecks from high CPU and memory usage and minimize the likelihood of out-of-memory events. It gives you recommendations to resize your instances to a machine tier that better suits your workload.

January 18, 2023

Cloud SQL for SQL Server enables you to use point-in-time recovery.

Point-in-time recovery helps you recover an instance to a specific point in time. For example, if an error causes a loss of data, you can recover a database to its state before the error occurred. This feature is generally available.

Cloud SQL now supports viewing an audit log for an automated backup of an instance to verify whether the backup is completed successfully. You can also configure a log-based alert so that a user can be notified of the backup's status.

January 10, 2023

You can use striped import and striped export to reduce the time needed for BAK file operations and for other purposes. This feature is generally available.

October 28, 2022

The changes listed in the September 15 Release Notes entry for read replica maintenance have been postponed.

October 07, 2022

When you create an instance, you can set a permanent time zone for the instance. This feature is generally available.

October 04, 2022

Terraform is supported when you use self-service maintenance.

September 21, 2022

Cloud SQL allows the re-use of an instance name immediately after the instance is deleted. For more information, see the Cloud SQL for SQL Server FAQ.

September 15, 2022

Cloud SQL read replicas now follow the maintenance settings for the primary instance, including the maintenance window, rescheduling, and the deny maintenance period. During the maintenance event, Cloud SQL maintains the replicas before maintaining the primary instance. For more information, see How does maintenance affect read replicas?

September 13, 2022

Support for me-west1 (Tel Aviv).

August 22, 2022

Cloud SQL may set a value for the max server memory (mb) flag on instances, based on Microsoft's recommended values. For information about flags supported by Cloud SQL, see Configure database flags.

August 15, 2022

By enabling instance deletion protection, you can prevent the accidental removal of Cloud SQL instances. This functionality is generally available.

For more information, see Prevent deletion of an instance.

July 11, 2022

The database major version upgrade feature of Cloud SQL for SQL Server is generally available. For more information, see Upgrade the database major version in-place.

July 08, 2022

The July maintenance changelog is now available. For more information, use the links at Maintenance changelog.

June 28, 2022

A second June maintenance changelog is now available. For more information, use the links at Maintenance changelog.

June 21, 2022

You can enable an instance to publish to a subscriber that is external (or internal) to Cloud SQL. In this scenario, Cloud SQL for SQL Server can act as a publisher to an external subscriber. This functionality, which is generally available, uses transactional replication.

For more information, see Configure external replicas.

In Cloud SQL, you can use SQL Server Audit capabilities to track and log server-level and database-level events. This functionality is generally available.

For more information, see SQL Server database auditing.

June 10, 2022

Cloud SQL now supports faster machine type changes, with connectivity dropping to less than 60 seconds. For more information, see Impact of changing instance settings.

June 09, 2022

The June maintenance changelog is now available. For more information, use the links at Maintenance changelog.

June 08, 2022

An addendum to the May maintenance changelog shows additional security patches. For more information, use the links at Maintenance changelog.

June 07, 2022

Support for us-south1 (Dallas).

May 24, 2022

Support for us-east5 (Columbus).

May 13, 2022

New maintenance versions are now available through self-service maintenance. See the maintenance changelog to learn more about these new maintenance versions.

May 04, 2022

Support for europe-west9 (Paris).

May 02, 2022

New maintenance versions are now available through self-service maintenance. See the maintenance changelog to learn more about these new maintenance versions.

April 28, 2022

The following Cloud SQL recommenders that help you optimize your database costs are now generally available:

April 25, 2022

You can now accept a maintenance update on your instance outside of the normal flow of scheduled maintenance.

While Cloud SQL schedules maintenance updates once every few months to ensure you have the latest maintenance version, you might want to use self-service maintenance if:

  • You need an update sooner than your next scheduled maintenance event.
  • You want to catch up to the latest maintenance version after skipping your most recent scheduled maintenance event.
  • You want to gain more control over when maintenance is applied

Cloud SQL now supports maintenance changelogs. Maintenance changelogs provide information about updates available in new maintenance versions, such as database minor version upgrades and patches for security vulnerabilities. For links to current maintenance changelogs for each major database version, see Cloud SQL maintenance changelogs.

April 20, 2022

Support for europe-west8 region (Milan).

April 12, 2022

Customer-managed encryption key (CMEK) organization policy constraints are now available in Preview.

  • constraints/gcp.restrictNonCmekServices allows you to control which resources require the use of CMEK.
  • constraints/gcp.restrictCmekCryptoKeyProjects allows you to control the projects from which a Cloud KMS key can be used to validate requests.

You can use both constraints together to enforce the use of CMEK from allowed projects.

To learn more, see Customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK) organization policies. To add CMEK organization policies now, see Add Cloud SQL organization policies.

April 11, 2022

Cloud SQL for SQL Server supports in-place upgrades in Preview. You can upgrade your instance's major version or edition. For more information, see Upgrade the database major version in-place.

February 23, 2022

If your primary instance uses a private IP address, you can now select an allocated IP range for clones and replicas created from the instance.

February 17, 2022

Cloud SQL now supports the use of tags on instances. Tags are key-value pairs you can apply to your resources, such as a project or a Cloud SQL instance, which are used for fine-grained access control. To learn more, see Access control with Google Cloud tags. To use tags now, see Attach and manage tags on Cloud SQL instances.

February 08, 2022

Cross-region replication is now generally available in Cloud SQL for SQL Server.

You can use replication to scale the use of data in a database without degrading performance. Other reasons include migrating or maintaining data duplicates between regions.

For more information, see Replication in Cloud SQL.

February 07, 2022

SQL Server 2019 is now the default version. See Database versions and version policies.

January 31, 2022

The Key Access Justifications (KAJ) feature is now generally available in Cloud SQL. You can use KAJ as part of Cloud External Key Manager (EKM). KAJ enables you to view the reason for each Cloud EKM request. Additionally, based on the justification provided, you can automatically approve or deny a request. For related information, see the Overview.

December 16, 2021

You can now see the database minor version when viewing information about an instance. See Database versions and version policies for a list of the latest supported versions.

December 13, 2021

A new feature enables more flexibility for integrating Cloud SQL for SQL Server with Managed Service for Microsoft Active Directory. You can integrate your SQL Server instance with a managed AD domain located in a different project.

November 16, 2021

Support for southamerica-west1 (Santiago) region.

October 08, 2021

Access Approval is now GA for Cloud SQL. Access Approval enables you to require explicit approval before Google Support may access your database for support purposes.To learn about access approval, see Overview of Access Approval. To set up access approval now, see the Access Approval Quickstart.

September 28, 2021

Cloud SQL supports the preview version of two recommenders that help you optimize your database costs:

When a database instance is nearly out of storage capacity, it's automatically stopped to prevent the loss of information. For more information, see Stopping an instance.

September 10, 2021

The Cloud SQL out-of-disk recommender is now generally available. This feature proactively generates recommendations that help you reduce the risk of downtime that might be caused by your instances running out of disk space.

August 21, 2021

Cloud SQL now supports IAM Conditions.

You can use IAM Conditions to define and enforce conditional, attribute-based access control for Google Cloud resources, including Cloud SQL instances. See Overview of IAM Conditions for more information.

August 09, 2021

The Cloud SQL Admin API v1 is now generally available. It is and will continue to be compatible with the v1beta4 version. There is no requirement to migrate from v1beta4 to the v1 Admin API.

August 03, 2021

Support for northamerica-northeast2-a,b,c (Toronto) region.

June 29, 2021

Support for asia-south2 (Delhi) region.

June 28, 2021

Integration of SQL Server with Managed Service for Microsoft Active Directory is generally available.

This provides capabilities for authentication, authorization, and more.

Joining an instance to a managed Active Directory domain enables you to log in to your SQL Server instances using Windows Authentication. Additionally, you can integrate with your on-premises AD domains by establishing a trust with the Managed Service for Microsoft Active Directory.

June 24, 2021

Cloud SQL for SQL Server now supports SQL Server 2019. The default version continues to be SQL Server 2017 Standard. See Database versions and version policies.

June 23, 2021

Cloud SQL storage limits are now increased to support up to 64 TB. See Cloud SQL storage limits for more information.

June 21, 2021

A preview enables you to use replication in Cloud SQL for SQL Server. Additionally, the preview enables you to make cross-region replicas.

You can use replication to scale the use of data in a database without degrading performance. Other reasons include migrating or maintaining data duplicates between regions.

For more information, see Replication in Cloud SQL.

Support for australia-southeast2 (Melbourne) region.

June 07, 2021

Cloud SQL now offers faster maintenance, with connectivity dropping for less than 120 seconds on average.

May 19, 2021

Cloud SQL supports the preview version of the out-of-disk recommender. This feature proactively generates recommendations that help you reduce the risk of downtime that might be caused by your instances running out of disk space. These recommendations can be applied when a Cloud SQL instance is trending towards the storage limit.

April 30, 2021

The following version upgrade applies to Cloud SQL for SQL Server:

  • SQL Server 2017 is upgraded from 14.0.3257.3 to 14.0.3370.1

If you use maintenance windows, the new version will be available after your maintenance update. For information about maintenance windows, and to manage maintenance updates, see Finding and setting maintenance windows.

April 06, 2021

Cloud SQL for SQL Server enables you to perform change data capture (CDC) operations for your Cloud SQL instances. General information about CDC in SQL Server is here.

CDC is available for the following Cloud SQL for SQL Server database versions:

  • SQL Server 2017 Standard
  • SQL Server 2017 Enterprise

After connecting to an instance, the sqlserver user can do many CDC operations. The functions include (and are not limited to) the following:

To turn on this feature for a database, run this command:

exec msdb.[dbo].[gcloudsql_cdc_enable_db] 'demo'

To turn off this feature for a database, run this command: exec msdb.[dbo].[gcloudsql_cdc_disable_db] 'demo'

Cloud SQL for SQL Server enables you to perform common operations on a tempdb database.

After you connect to an instance, the sqlserver user can manage the tempdb files. Specifically, the user has the CONTROL permission on the tempdb database, and can do many operations, including (and not limited to) the following: 

    *   ALTER DATABASE [tempdb] ADD FILE
    *   ALTER DATABASE [tempdb] REMOVE

March 29, 2021

You can integrate Cloud SQL for SQL Server with Managed Service for Microsoft Active Directory.

Authentication, authorization, and more are available. For example, joining an instance to a managed Active Directory domain enables you to log in using Windows Authentication. Additionally, you can integrate with your on-premises AD domains by establishing a trust.

March 24, 2021

February 10, 2021

The Cloud SQL Admin API v1beta4 is now generally available. The URL for the Admin API will continue to refer to v1beta4 for backward compatibility. To start using the Cloud SQL Admin API now, see Using the Cloud SQL Admin API.

January 13, 2021

Cloud SQL now exposes the metric database/memory/total_usage. This metric provides visibility into the database working set (including buffer cache). You can find this metric in the Metrics explorer within the Monitoring dashboard.

For more information about database/memory/total_usage, see Cloud SQL Metrics.

November 19, 2020

Cloud SQL for SQL Server now supports retention settings for automated backups. You can configure retention of your automated backups for shorter or longer periods (1 to 365 days). The default setting remains 7 days.

October 12, 2020

Cloud SQL now offers "deny maintenance periods". With deny maintenance periods, you can prevent automatic maintenance from occurring during a specific time period. For example, the end-of-year holiday season is a time of peak load that requires heightened focus on infrastructure stability for many retail businesses. By setting a deny maintenance period from mid-October to mid-January, these businesses can prevent planned upgrades from Cloud SQL during their busiest time of year.

September 21, 2020

Cloud SQL for SQL Server enables you to set a default collation value for databases in an instance. This collation value is a default for sorting rules, case, and accent sensitivity. You can set this value through the Cloud Console, the gcloud command, and the Cloud SQL Admin API.

August 31, 2020

Cloud SQL for SQL Server supports cloning using the Cloud Console, the gcloud command, and the Cloud SQL Admin API. When you clone an instance, you create an independent copy of the source instance.

June 23, 2020

Committed use discounts (CUDs) are now available to purchase for Cloud SQL. CUDs provide discounted prices in exchange for your commitment to use a minimum level of resources for a specified term. With committed use discounts for Cloud SQL, you can earn a deep discount off your cost of use in exchange for committing to continuously use database instances in a particular region for a 1- or 3-year term. See the documentation for more details.

June 08, 2020

Support for asia-southeast2 region (Jakarta).

April 20, 2020

Support for us-west4 region (Las Vegas).

March 24, 2020

Cloud SQL now supports 96-core machine types for MySQL, Postgres, and SQL Server instances. For pricing-related information, see the Pricing page.

March 16, 2020

Cloud SQL instances using private IP are now accessible across regions, at the regular cross-region network egress cost.

February 24, 2020

Support for us-west3 region (Salt Lake City).

February 19, 2020

Cloud SQL for SQL Server now is generally available. Additionally, Cloud SQL for SQL Server includes new security and performance enhancements. To create SQL Server instances, see Creating Instances.

January 24, 2020

Support for asia-northeast3 region (Seoul).

December 17, 2019

Cloud SQL now supports VPC Service Controls, which let you add a service perimeter around the Cloud SQL Admin API and host project for Cloud SQL instances to reduce the risk of data exfiltration. To learn more about using VPC Service Controls with Cloud SQL, see Configuring VPC Service Controls.

December 13, 2019

You can now use Cloud VPN with Cloud SQL. To get started, see Using a VPN with Cloud SQL.

Connection organization policies for Cloud SQL give you the ability to set policies that control access to and from Cloud SQL instances. To learn more about this feature, see Connection organization policies. To use this feature, see Setting organization policies for Cloud SQL.

December 10, 2019

Cloud SQL now offers notifications for upcoming maintenance. See the Overview of maintenance on Cloud SQL instances. To find out how to sign up for notifications and check your instances for upcoming maintenance, see Finding and setting maintenance windows.

November 25, 2019

Cloud SQL now supports Access Transparency. As part of Google's long-term commitment to security and transparency, you can use Access Transparency, which provides you with logs of actions that Google staff have taken when accessing your data. To learn more about Access Transparency, see the Overview of Access Transparency.

November 19, 2019

Cloud SQL now supports customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK). With CMEK, you can encrypt Cloud SQL instances using a key you manage. To learn more about CMEK, see the Overview of customer managed encryption keys (CMEK). To start using CMEK, see Using customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK).

October 15, 2019

The beta version of Cloud SQL for SQL Server is available. To begin creating SQL Server instances, see Creating Instances.