We are thrilled to announce the General Availability (GA) of continuous migration assessments for SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc! Along with this new milestone, we are introducing a host of powerful enhancements designed to simplify your migration planning, provide clearer cost insights, and deliver greater flexibility as you chart your modernization journey to the cloud.

What’s New

This release brings a completely reimagined assessment experience, specifically tailored to answer the most pressing questions you have when migrating your SQL Server workloads:

• Enhanced Assessment Experience: Benefit from a refreshed landing page and detailed views for single Arc SQL Server instances, making the experience more intuitive and actionable.
• Retail Pricing with Azure Savings Options: Customers can now seamlessly access retail pricing information for all Azure Savings Options, including SQL Azure Hybrid Benefit (AHB), Windows AHB, Reserved Instances, and Azure Savings Plans. This covers Azure SQL Database (DB), Azure SQL Managed Instance (MI), and SQL Server running on Azure Virtual Machine (VM) configurations as recommended by assessment. 
• Comprehensive Cost Breakdown: See the projected cost split by Compute and Storage for each configuration, making it easier than ever to understand where your investments matter most. To simplify comparisons, all assessments use pricing for the West US region and are fixed in USD.
• Precomputed Savings: Save time and reduce manual errors. All prices for savings options are precomputed; simply adjust from Assessment settings and watch costs quickly update for the single instance view.
• Migration Strategy Improvements: Migration strategy-based recommendations now appear in the portal alongside your chosen pricing settings, all within scope for a single instance—providing strategic guidance at your fingertips.

 

Simplified, Reliable, and Actionable Assessments

Planning a migration can be daunting, especially when it comes to comparing costs across multiple scenarios. Previously, entering pricing data manually for each option was tedious, error-prone, and repetitive. With this new release, all that heavy lifting is handled for you—compare options and costs with just a few clicks.

Start Your Migration Journey Today

The new migration assessment experience in SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc is designed to give you accurate, instant insights to power your cloud migration decisions. With retail pricing, savings visibility, and easier scenario comparison all at your fingertips, your path to Azure just got clearer and more cost-effective.

We can’t wait for you to try the new experience and look forward to your feedback as you embark on your migration journey!

References

• Assess migration readiness – SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc
• Migrate SQL Server to Azure SQL
• SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc
• Deployment options for SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc

 

 

🚀 Description:
In this packed episode of Engineering the Loop, we break down everything you need to know from Microsoft Build 2025—and trust us, it’s not just incremental upgrades. From the rise of AI agents and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to the total transformation of search, software development, and even how you cool a data center, this year’s Build proves Microsoft is all in on an AI-first future.

We cover:

• Why MCP might replace traditional APIs (and kill search engines as we know them)

• How Copilot is leveling up with Agent Mode and SRE capabilities

• Running your own copilots locally with AI Foundry Local

• The wild vision of NL Web for conversational internet

• And why every developer needs to pay attention—fast

Whether you’re a developer, an architect, or just fascinated by what’s next in AI, this episode will catch you up and spark ideas.

⏱️ Chapters:

00:00 – Welcome & Build 2025 Overview
Kickoff and why this year’s conference felt like a seismic shift.

02:30 – Agents and MCP 101
What are agents? What is Model Context Protocol? Why do they matter so much?

10:20 – Copilot Everywhere
Copilot Studio, Copilot Agent Mode, GitHub Copilot Chat, and the rise of SRE agents.

19:15 – AI Foundry Local & Bring Your Own Models
How you can run and fine-tune your own models—locally and securely.

25:40 – NL Web & The Death of Search
Could conversational agents replace traditional search engines?

31:00 – Data Center Innovations & Sustainability
Immersive cooling, carbon negativity, and the future of green AI infrastructure.

35:10 – Developer Productivity Supercharged
Swagger specs, MCP servers, and Copilot building entire applications for you.

41:45 – Governance, Security & What Comes Next
Managing agents, protecting MCP endpoints, and Microsoft’s vision for AI governance.

47:00 – Closing Thoughts & Predictions
Where do we go from here?

🎧 Listen now and join the conversation—because the future is arriving faster than you think.

Download audio: https://anchor.fm/s/104ead10c/podcast/play/105119289/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-6-7%2F403423454-44100-2-b9f4a4f00249b.mp3

Last year I wrote an article about how ToListAsync was slow in Entity Framework titled: "Be careful with ToListAsync and ToArrayAsync in Entity Framework Core". Things have evolved since then, so let's celebrate!

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