Data Migration Assistant

The scary part of upgrading SQL Server is finding out you have a problem AFTER the fact. In this episode, Mariano Kovo joins us to discuss the Data Migration Assistant tool from Microsoft. While the name can be a bit misleading, (What? Microsoft have confusing names—that’s a first), the major benefit to the tool is the assessment feature to alert you of potential issues when you upgrade. Issues are broken into three major categories:

  • Breaking Changes
  • Behavior Changes
  • Deprecated Changes

While each change should be reviewed, many times we allow deprecated features to remain unresolved as they are still supported in SQL Server; however, we certainly want to put those on the backlog because one day Microsoft will finally pull the plug and we want to be ahead of the curve.

3 Takeaways

  1. Data Migration Assistant (DMA) replaces the Database Upgrade Advisor.
  2. DMA can create new objects in Azure SQL Database environments, but is not our preferred method to migrate databases.
  3. DMA can only inspect objects in the database—it won’t check ad hoc code inside the application unless you provide a trace file to review.

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Our Guest

mariano kovo

Mariano Kovo

Data & Analytics Executive | Microsoft MVP Data Platform

Global IT Entrepreneur | Digital Analytics expert with over 15 years of experience leading the data & analytics practice at LATAM and US companies.

Blog | LinkedIn | X

[Data Migration Assistant] will tell you if you are using any instance feature that is not compatible with the destination target that you choose.

Mariano Kovo

Meet the Hosts

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Carlos Chacon

With more than 10 years of working with SQL Server, Carlos helps businesses ensure their SQL Server environments meet their users’ expectations. He can provide insights on performance, migrations, and disaster recovery. He is also active in the SQL Server community and regularly speaks at user group meetings and conferences. He helps support the free database monitoring tool found at databasehealth.com and provides training through SQL Trail events.

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Eugene Meidinger

Eugene works as an independent BI consultant and Pluralsight author, specializing in Power BI and the Azure Data Platform. He has been working with data for over 8 years and speaks regularly at user groups and conferences. He also helps run the GroupBy online conference.

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Kevin Feasel

Kevin is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and proprietor of Catallaxy Services, LLC, where he specializes in T-SQL development, machine learning, and pulling rabbits out of hats on demand. He is the lead contributor to Curated SQL, president of the Triangle Area SQL Server Users Group, and author of the books PolyBase Revealed (Apress, 2020) and Finding Ghosts in Your Data: Anomaly Detection Techniques with Examples in Python (Apress, 2022). A resident of Durham, North Carolina, he can be found cycling the trails along the triangle whenever the weather's nice enough.

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