Early retirement. It’s something we all – well, most of us – dream about. But not when it comes to software features!
Microsoft announced that it is retiring SQL Server 2019 Big Data Clusters on February 28, 2025. That’s right after Mainstream Support ends (currently scheduled for January 14, 2025), but nearly five (5) years before Extended Support ends.
SQL Server Big Clusters – released as a feature of Version 2019 – is a deployment method allowing SQL Server to create / query centralized repositories (e.g., data lakes) with no additional product licensing.
A feature of SQL Server Big Data Clusters, PolyBase, is also being retired, but it will be available until the end of Extended Support (currently scheduled for January 8, 2030). However, SQL Server 2019, 2017, and 2016 will continue to support the functionality to the end of life of those products.
The announcement goes on to read “Cloudera (CDP) and Hortonworks (HDP) external data sources will also be retired for all in-market versions of SQL Server and will not be included in SQL Server 2022.”
SQL Server Big Data Clusters will be replaced by Azure Data Lake services, including Azure Data Lake Analytics.
Contact Miro, your trusted software licensing advisor, for more information.