Azure & Microsoft migration
SQL Server 2016 is out of support. Here are your four real options.
Support ended on 14 July 2026, and the most common pitch about what that means for Azure is wrong. Here is the corrected version, and the choices that are actually in front of you.
This post is part of Azure & Microsoft Migration.
The date, and the pitch that doesn't survive checking
SQL Server 2016 reached end of extended support on 14 July 2026. Extended Security Updates (ESUs) are available for up to three years after that, until17 July 2029.
Microsoft Learn — SQL Server 2016 lifecycle
Here is where a lot of the market's advice goes wrong. A standard pitch in this space is "migrate the workload to Azure VMs and you get those Extended Security Updates for free." That was true for SQL Server 2014. It is not true for SQL Server 2016.
Microsoft's own documentation states it plainly: "Starting with SQL Server 2016 (13.x), migrating your workload to SQL Server on Azure VMs no longer provides free access to ESUs for SQL Server 2016 (13.x) instances." The free-ESU benefit that applied to 2014 does not carry forward. If a vendor is using free ESUs as the reason to rehost your 2016 estate to Azure VMs, they are working from an old deck — worth asking them to re-check before you sign anything on the strength of it.
Microsoft Learn — SQL Server Extended Security Updates
We are writing the correction in public, on the record, with a date on it, because getting this specific fact right is worth more to a buyer than any adjective on a services page — and because we would rather you catch us wrong on something checkable than trust us on something that isn't.
Your four real options
None of these is universally "the answer." Which one fits depends on your application's compatibility, your licensing position, and whether you would rather spend money once or pay annually for a bridge.
Upgrade in place. Move to a currently-supported SQL Server version, on your own hardware or virtualisation. Perfectly legitimate — it costs a version upgrade and application testing, and it starts the same support clock again in a few years.
Subscribe to Extended Security Updates. Buy time rather than solve the problem. Available on-premises through Azure Arc or on Azure VMs; the price is designed to escalate each year, because ESUs are a bridge, not a destination. Connecting an instance to Azure Arc is itself free of charge.
Rehost to Azure VMs. Solves the hardware and datacentre problem — ageing servers, an expiring hosting contract, a warranty that has lapsed. It does not solve the version problem: you still own patching, upgrades, and, for a 2016 instance, the ESU subscription above.
Re-platform to Azure SQL Managed Instance or Azure SQL Database. The option that actually ends the cycle. Both are version-less services with no end-of-support date to plan around and no upgrade project waiting in three years. It is also the option most likely to need application testing, and occasionally a code change.
The assessment we sell tells you which of the four applies per database, with the cost of each named against it. Sometimes the right answer for a given system is option one, even though it is the option that involves the least work for us — we will say so anyway.
The one most people forget to check
One more honest note on scope: this page is about the SQL Server engine's support clock, not about whether you should be in Azure at all. Some workloads genuinely should stay exactly where they are for another year, and the right assessment will tell you that as readily as it will tell you to move.
Start with the assessment, not the migration.
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