A sneak peek into Azure Data Studio – Retirement and Transition !! – Inspiring Vision

In the world were technology is moving in a fast pace, lets take a glance on Azure Data Studio which is an effective tool for data analysis and is widely used in many sectors.

What is Azure Data Studio ?

“A modern open-source, cross-platform hybrid data analytics tool designed to analyze data for creating meticulous reports and dashboards which can give future insights. “

Azure data studio is built for data professionals who use SQL servers and Azure databases (PostgreSQL) on multi-cloud environments, so Azure data Studio can be run on Windows, macOS, Linux. The flexibility of being installed and used on many Operating system makes it gain some popularity. Nevertheless to say it connects and can run query on SQL Server, Azure SQL databases, PostgreSQL, MySQL and many more.

To Summarize the Key features of Azure Data Studio to other tools :

It gives cross platform support and hence can be used with different Operating Systems.
It is lightweight, fast and uses minimal resource
User Interface is modern, can be customized according to our needs
It has built in Git-Integration support which makes life easier for version controls and enhances team collaboration.
Impressive extension support that enhances the application with additional functionalities like postgreSQL.
Built in query editor, native Jupyter Notebooks is an open-source web application that allows you to create and share documents containing live code, equations, visualizations, and narrative text. Usage includes data cleaning and transformation, numerical simulation, statistical modeling, data visualization, and machine learning.

Though Azure data studio is widely used , it has retired on February 6, 2025, as they focus on delivering a modern, streamlined SQL development experience. ADS will remain supported until February 28, 2026, giving developers ample time to transition. This decision aligns with their commitment to simplifying SQL development by consolidating efforts on Visual Studio Code (VS Code) with the MSSQL extension, a powerful and versatile tool designed for modern developers.

Why the decision of transition ?

This transition has been initiated to focus on innovation as Visual Studio is widely used by developers and has a sturdy platform to deliver more advanced and unique features like cutting edge schema management and improved query execution. VS code has extensive support world wide and trusted by millions of developers.

Moreover VS code has comprehensive SQL features and by adding an MSSQL extension you can get an exemplifying experience as queries execute much faster with filtering, sorting and exporting in JSON, Excel and CSV format.

It can manage schema visually with Table Designer, object explorer and support keys and constraints. Additionally it can integrate with DevOps and CI/CD pipelines using SQL Database Projects.

VS supports software applications that can be deployed, managed and run in cloud viz a viz- cloud native development and thousands of extensions to reinforce your workflows

Nonetheless, the transition will be seamless as VS has same functionalities and has extensions which will facilitate the usage of the ADS scripts without any additional migration steps.

The cherry on the cake is VS code has familiar features with cross platform support and we have continued support till next year.

We do agree most of them have been using Azure Data Studio for ages however as the saying goes –

“The only constant in technology industry is Change” by Marc Benioff

So, Be Resilient and strengthen your skills !!