Minimum SQL Version

Question

Experts,

Understanding is that using lift and shift migration strategy to migrate VM hosting SQL Server from
On premise to Azure , the min SQL version is SQl 2008 SP4. Does it mean the migration will fail if the version/Service pack is below it or will the migration go through but will not be supported.

Answer 1

That depends on how you do the migration. If you migrate to Azure SQL Database or Managed Instance, you will be on SQL 2019 essentially.

If you migrate to a VM, you can take an existing image, and these images only have the most recent service packs etc. If you are a on lower service pack on-prem migration is not going to fail - the effect is the same as if you had applied the service pack locally. That is, there is a very small risk that you will run into regression issues.

If you start with a blank VM, you can install SQL Server with any service pack you like, but you will of course not be supported - just as you are unsupported with these versions today. (And as Leon noted, SQL 2008 is unsupported unless you have coughed up for extra support.)

Answer 2

Hi,

You can consider asking questions related to Azure Migrate on a dedicated forum (tag: azure-migrate or azure-sql-virtual-machines).

Answer 3

Hi @Vishal Garg ,

The minimum source version is there for a reason, it will most likely not work with any older SQL Server versions because SQL Server 2008 is officially end-of-life (EOL), unless you have purchased extended support or already migrated to Azure, but this only applies to SQL Server 2008/2008R2.

Best would be to use at least the minimum required version for Azure Migrate, there are also other tools and third-party tools that can migrate older versions of SQL Server to Azure.

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Best regards,
Leon