Have you ever wondered whether you’re definitely on the latest patch of SQL?
I found a site a few years ago which I use at least once a week, every week.
In SSMS when you view a server’s properties you will see a version number e.g. 11.0.5058.0 which to most of us doesn’t mean a lot. On the face of it you can tell its v11 of the software, and you suspect it’s not the GA release due to the 5058 part, but in reality how does this translate to the year and service pack?
The answer is: http://sqlserverbuilds.blogspot.co.uk/ which provides a nice little table as below.
The best thing is that this site seems to be kept up to date all the time and further down the page you will see all sub-versions/ Cumulative updates and release dates, with hyperlinks to release notes.
I find this info very useful when debugging performance issues, especially with 2008R2/2012 so I can check the customer is on the latest patch of the version they have. Also with Microsoft’s changes to extended life of these products over the last few years, some patches are supported and others aren’t. To check what is/isn’t supported it’s worth browsing (and bookmarking) this link: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/search/
The Product Lifecycle page at Microsoft is fully searchable for all MS products, and will tell you which patches are supported and which ones may already be out of support. e.g. for SQL Server 2012 you’re fine if on SP4, for SP3 you only have 8 months left, SP2 down is already out of support:
If you ask me we should all be on SQL 2016, but I fully understand the reasons we hold back, whether due to licensing costs, downtime issues, 3rd party support or other issues.