SQL Server 2025 Is Out: Standard Edition Goes Up to 256GB RAM, 32 Cores

Today marks the official release of Microsoft SQL Server 2025. This major release brings significant improvements across all editions, with particularly exciting news for Standard Edition users. The feature differences between 2025 Enterprise and Standard have been revealed, and the news for Standard Edition is spectacular: it now supports up to 32 CPU cores and 256GB RAM! This article explores the key features, improvements, breaking changes, and provides guidance on when to upgrade.

1. Edition Improvements and Changes
2. Resource Governor Enhancements
3. Columnstore Index Improvements
4. JSON Data Type and Indexing
5. AI Integration and Capabilities
6. Built-in Regular Expressions
7. Optimized Locking Feature
8. Breaking Changes and Compatibility
9. When Should You Upgrade?

1. Edition Improvements and Changes

Standard Edition: A Game Changer

The most significant news for many organizations is the massive improvement to Standard Edition. Previously limited to much lower resource allocations, SQL Server 2025 Standard Edition now supports:

32 CPU Cores

Standard Edition can now utilize up to 32 CPU cores, a substantial increase that makes it viable for many more enterprise workloads.

256GB RAM

With support for up to 256GB of RAM, Standard Edition can handle significantly larger databases and more concurrent users.

Other Edition Updates

Express Edition

Express Edition now supports up to 50GB per database, although it's still capped at a single CPU core. This makes it more suitable for small applications and development environments.

Web Edition Discontinued

Web Edition is no longer available in SQL Server 2025. Organizations using Web Edition will need to migrate to Standard or Enterprise Edition.

Standard Developer Edition

A new Standard Developer edition mimics the behavior and limitations of Standard Edition, perfect for development and testing environments where you need to match production constraints.

2. Resource Governor Enhancements

TempDB Space Management

If your TempDB runs out of space, you'll love Resource Governor's new ability to cap space usage for workload groups (or everybody altogether). This should be a part of everybody's standard builds for 2025 servers.

Key Benefits

Prevent TempDB from running out of space
Control resource allocation per workload group
Protect critical workloads from resource contention
Now available in Standard Edition (previously Enterprise-only)

3. Columnstore Index Improvements

Enhanced Maintenance Capabilities

SQL Server 2025 continues upon every release's investments in columnstore indexes, with a bunch of improvements to make management easier on ordered indexes. In early tests with clients, we've seen massive improvements in easier, faster, more online maintenance that we simply couldn't do before.

Online Maintenance

More operations can now be performed online, reducing downtime and improving availability for critical systems.

Faster Rebuilds

Index rebuild operations are significantly faster, especially for large tables with ordered columnstore indexes.

4. JSON Data Type and Indexing

Native JSON Support

If you're storing and querying JSON, either in NVARCHAR(MAX) columns or 2025's new JSON data type, there's a new JSON_CONTAINS search function, which in many cases is quite sargable with the new JSON indexes.

Important Note

JSON indexes should only be used when you can't predict which columns you need to index. When possible, index them with computed columns instead for better performance and predictability.

JSON Index Benefits

Native JSON data type for better performance
JSON_CONTAINS function for efficient searches
Indexed JSON paths for faster queries
Reduced need for computed columns in some scenarios

5. AI Integration and Capabilities

External REST Endpoint Integration

If you're doing AI projects, the most interesting piece is the ability to call things like ChatGPT using the new sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint. This opens up exciting possibilities for integrating AI capabilities directly into your database workflows.

Vector Data Type

SQL Server 2025 introduces a new vector data type, vector functions, and vector search capabilities for AI workloads.

Use Cases

Call Azure OpenAI services, integrate with external AI APIs, and perform vector similarity searches for recommendation systems and semantic search.

Adoption Note

Vector features may see adoption rates similar to spatial data and graph data—useful for specific scenarios but not universally adopted. Focus on REST endpoint integration for broader AI use cases.

6. Built-in Regular Expressions

Native Regex Support

If you're into regular expressions, they're now built in, so you don't have to install third-party tools for it anymore. However, test your queries first—we've seen horrific performance in some cases.

Performance Warning

SQL Server doesn't have any magic secret sauce to make your convoluted search conditions sargable, and string processing has never been SQL Server's strong point. This feature is like cursors—there will be very specific places where it makes sense, usually in one-off utility queries, not the kind of thing you want to put in front of end users.

Best Practices

Use for data validation and one-time data cleanup
Avoid in high-frequency queries
Test performance thoroughly before production use
Consider computed columns with indexes for repeated patterns

7. Optimized Locking Feature

Eliminate Lock Escalation Issues

If you struggle with lock escalations and multiple writers, enable the new Optimized Locking feature in conjunction with Accelerated Database Recovery. You can have millions of rows involved in write locks, and you still won't see lock escalation.

No Lock Escalation

Handle millions of rows without escalation

Better Concurrency

Improved performance for multiple writers

Requires ADR

Works with Accelerated Database Recovery

8. Breaking Changes and Compatibility

TDS 8.0 and TLS 1.3

SQL Server versions rarely get big breaking changes, and this release is no exception. However, 2025 does have several breaking changes focused around secure connectivity between services and servers. SQL Server 2025 adopts TDS 8.0 support with TLS 1.3, which breaks some linked servers and replication setups.

What You Need to Know

Linked servers may require configuration updates
Replication setups need TLS 1.3 compatibility
Fixes are typically straightforward but require testing
Plan for connectivity testing during upgrade

Deprecated Features

Several features have been removed or deprecated, including:

Data Quality Services
Master Data Services
Synapse Link
Big Data Clusters
Ledger tables

9. When Should You Upgrade?

Upgrade Recommendations

SQL Server 2025 is different from previous releases. We think you should adopt it sooner rather than later, especially for development environments.

If You Build Your Own Apps

Put SQL Server 2025 into your development environments sooner rather than later. Initially, keep the databases in the older compatibility level, and warn developers not to use any new data types, functions, or T-SQL capabilities from 2025 until you've got confidence that you can run 2025 in production.

Use development servers as testbeds for management & monitoring apps
Test linked servers, replication, and other infrastructure components
Gain confidence in low-load environments before production
Monitor for bugs that will be fixed in the first few Cumulative Updates

If You Only Host 3rd Party Apps

Hold back until your vendors agree that SQL Server 2025 is one of their supported platforms. Yes, in terms of what the apps feel, 2025 will probably behave identically to prior versions as long as the compatibility level is set to a level the vendor supports. However, you don't want to be the one who gets blamed when the vendor says, "Sorry, you're running a version of SQL Server that we don't support."

Wait for vendor support confirmation
Use compatibility levels to maintain behavior
Turn on Query Store and automatic tuning
Follow best practices for going live on new versions

Looking Ahead: SQL Server 2025 Adoption

SQL Server 2025 represents a significant milestone, especially for Standard Edition users who now have access to enterprise-level resource capabilities. The combination of improved performance, new features, and better resource management makes this release compelling for many organizations.

Key takeaways: Standard Edition's massive resource increase makes it viable for many more workloads, Resource Governor is now available in Standard Edition, and the new features like JSON indexing, AI integration, and Optimized Locking provide powerful capabilities. Start planning your upgrade path now, beginning with development environments and gradually moving to production as you gain confidence and vendor support.

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SQL Server 2025 Is Out, and Standard Goes Up to 256GB RAM, 32 Cores!

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