Microsoft announce that there’s a new member of the Fabric workload family – SQL databases. They consume the same Fabric Capacity Units as the other Fabric workloads, with storage and backups billed separately. However, you can use SQL database in Fabric for free until 1 January, 2025 when compute and data storage charges begin, with backup billing starting on 1 February, 2025.
Find the announcement with an overview of notable features here: https://bit.ly/3Z0iq7n.
There’s an updated (April 2024) Viva feature comparison table, a very useful document that covers the Viva family of products and the various components. There are a few changes made to align it with some recent Microsoft announcements.
Firstly, a new column has been added for Viva Pulse – now available as a standalone licence costing $2 per user per month (https://bit.ly/3QHtAe0).
Additionally, the reference to Topics in Viva has been removed, as Viva Topics will be retired in February 2025 (https://bit.ly/3UGfACb).
And, notably, the document now specifies which Viva product requires a Microsoft Teams license, considering that Teams is now sold separately from the Office 365/Microsoft 365 suites (https://bit.ly/3vC9SZR).
Get this updated comparison table here: https://bit.ly/3UYgBHh.
Microsoft announce the retirement of SQL Server 2019 Big Data Clusters. Existing users will be fully supported on the platform through February 2025 with the software maintained through SQL Server cumulative updates until that time.
There’s advice for replacement and migration options for customers here: https://bit.ly/35Xiblt, and you can find the retirement announcement here: https://bit.ly/3sMVUjl.