SQL Server 2019: The Voice of the Customer
In my last on article on SQL Server 2019 I described the radical story of data virtualization through Polybase and the revolutionary solution of SQL Server Big Data Clusters integrating SQL Server, HDFS, Spark, and Machine Learning leveraging the power of Kubernetes.
I firmly believe everything we have poured into SQL Server 2019 is based on customer experience. There are some specific requests that customers have for the SQL Server product that make each release. Some of these may seem small but they are big for the customers who asked for them. And together they make a compelling story for how SQL Server 2019 continues as in past releases to build an incredible database engine and platform.
Consider that one of the top customer voted items in the entire history of the SQL Server product is what appears to be a simple error message:
String or binary data would be truncated
This one message has caused more pain and grief than anyone probably knows. Why? Well, it would be nice to know what table and column were involved in this error so anyone trying to solve the problem doesn't have dive into the code and guess which table and/or column had its data "truncated".
So in SQL Server 2019, this message now appears like this:
String or binary data would be truncated in table '%.*ls', column '%.*ls'. Truncated value: '%.*ls'.
NOTE: This change was also back-ported to SQL Server 2016 and 2017. See https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4468101/optional-replacement-for-string-or-binary-data-would-be-truncated for more details.
But there is more. There are a series of User Experience, Diagnostics, and Performance enhancements in SQL Server 2019 that are worth calling out. These don't make the headlines or marketing brochures but collectively they matter:
User experience
- The #1 voted customer feedback item of all time: String Truncation
- MAXDOP and Memory Config during Setup
- Memory Grant Percent in Resource Governor
- Estimate compression for Columnstore indexes
Diagnostics
- Troubleshoot page latch waits with new built-in T-SQL
- Diagnostics for auto stats blocking
- Custom capture policy for the Query Store
- Columnstore stats in DBCC CLONEDATABASE
Performance
- Reduce recompiles for tempdb workloads
- Indirect Checkpoint Scalability
- Concurrent PFS updates
- Worker Stealing
- Inline Log Writes
If you want to learn more about all of these enhancements look at our documentation at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/what-s-new-in-sql-server-ver15?view=sql-server-ver15.
Some of these are just built-in to SQL Server 2019 so you may not even know they exist. Collectively, they matter. Each one of these has a story behind it. A customer who spoke up to help make a difference.
There are still many outstanding requests pending. You can see and vote on any of them at https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server.
You may feel like the SQL Server team doesn't listen but we do. In fact, all of these above changes were "battle-tested". In other words, developers and program managers looked at feedback and made a case that these enhancements should make it into the product even if it meant not building a new feature. I've witnessed this myself first-hand in meetings, emails, and reviews.
Without the voice of the customer we wouldn't have a product. Please keep speaking your voice. I'm sure the person who first asked for the string truncation message perhaps never though this would get into the product. And yet here it is. Your feedback request could be the next one.
Start learning SQL Server 2019 today using our new Video Learning Series at https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2019/10/28/introducing-the-sql-server-2019-video-learning-series/.
If you want more details on what's new in SQL Server 2019, check out our documentation at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/what-s-new-in-sql-server-ver15. Want to follow other posts and new articles where I talk more about the details behind SQL Server 2019, follow #sqlserver2019. Or follow me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/bobwardms or Twitter at @bobwardms.
You can also learn more about SQL Server 2019 in my new book SQL Server 2019 Revealed by Apress at https://aka.ms/sql2019book or found on Amazon at https://amzn.to/33R8gaR.
Bob Ward, Principal Architect, Microsoft Azure Data SQL Server
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