The date is July 14th, 2026 and it’s TSQL Tuesday #200. We are still using SQL Server, and in fact SQL v2026.July.10 has just been released and v2026.July.25 announced.

Many things haven’t changed much in the last 8 years. For example:

• Profiler is still deprecated.
• msdb and SQL Agent haven’t been upgraded.
• Always On has gone between AlwaysOn and Always On 47 times and no one is really sure which is currently correct. (And most people still don’t know what an Availability Group is.)
• Service Broker is still rather complicated and difficult to impliment.
• Many people still think NOLOCK means that SQL will not be taking any locks.
• Three different people have submitted sessions to PASS Summit titled “The death of the DBA”.

On the other hand, there have been many improvements.

• Security analytics has matured and companies can now see in simple reports what they need to do to secure their data. They still aren’t doing any of it, however.
• You can now run Powershell and Python scripts directly from SSMS query windows by turning on PoSH mode and Python mode.
• A number of Extended Event & SQL Audit templates have been created to cover various legal requirements (HIPAA for example)
• BizOps is the latest in a long string of methodologies meant to get people to actually talk to each other.
• Moving data between the cloud and on-premises is completely seamless and automated (mostly). It still takes time to transfer the data, however.
• Tech Outbound has announced its plans to do a SQL Server training trip to Mars.

 
In fact, all I can really say is

The future’s so bright I have to wear shades