New upgrade capability in SSMS gives you readiness assessment and upgrade the SQL Server within SSMS.
Updated Jan 22, 2025
Version 2.0With DMA being deprecated, I am very happy to see it coming back and built-in to SSMS with a lot of the same look and feel. I have used DMA to assess and migrate hundreds of databases and migrated logins in both same version database migrations and migrations to newer versions of SQL. To migrate SQL logins easily without having to know the passwords is super nice feature (plus matching up the SID and database permissions). I had upgraded DMA a few times with some of those upgrades requiring new versions of .NET Framework updates. So this being added to SSMS will see updates to DMA updates with SSMS updates.
One thought in my opinion is to rename the menu item from "Right-click on the SQL Server database -> click on Tasks -> Upgrade SQL Server" to Upgrade Assessment and Migration under the Tasks submenu. Upgrade SQL Server sounds like a SQL Server level upgrade and not a database; even though this is under the database context. I would hate to see this new feature hidden behind a cryptic menu item name.
Thank you for your feedback Steven_Wheeler for your feedback. We will keep the feature visible and easy to find.