December 19, 2022 at 5:15 pm
I was recently informed by our Help Desk that there is a version of the .NET core on our production SQL Server 2019 which is going out of support. The Help Desk wants to upgrade it.
In preparation for this upgrade project, I tried to research what aspects of SQL Server might be affected. I'm guessing that SSIS and Maintenance packages would be affected. But I don't know, and I couldn't find any information in my general search.
Does anyone in this group know what might be affected by upgrading the .NET core? What recommendations do you have as a process for doing this upgrade? To my knowledge, we have lots of server backups, but I don't think we have ever actually tried to restore one. Seems like now would be a good time to do that. HOWEVER, it's my guess that a problem with upgrading the .NET core may not show up right away. In other words, a bug might not show up for a day or two until after staff have added data. So, simply being able to go back to a restore/backup point may not be possible.
I'm guessing that immediately, post upgrade of the .NET Core, I should test all the SSIS and database maintenance packages. I'd be happy to take any other advice and/or information that people have! Thank you!!
December 19, 2022 at 6:52 pm
Honestly, I doubt you will see much of a difference. .Net 4.61 gets installed with SQL 2016 and up. I have seen zero issues with .Net upgrades on a variety of database, application, and web servers.
Remember, unless it's a very old version of .Net, each successive version of .Net is backwards compatible with the previous version. Of course, there have been a few exceptions to that. 4.5 to 4.61 changed the method to connect was one.
I'm hoping you have a separate server to do regression testing.
Michael L John
If you assassinate a DBA, would you pull a trigger?
To properly post on a forum:
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/61537/
December 19, 2022 at 7:06 pm
Michael: Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge and experience!
Regarding a separate server: To my knowledge, we do not have that, but I plan on bringing it up...
December 19, 2022 at 9:00 pm
I would ask THEM (your Help Desk people) to contact Microsoft and for THEM to take full responsibility if the proverbial poo hit's the fan because of such an upgrade. Either that, or leave it alone because if MS thought it was a good idea, it would be included as a part of a CU.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
December 19, 2022 at 11:00 pm
I found an update by someone that I personally trust on the subject (to be sure, I also trust Michael but the link below has a "chart" on the subject that makes it easy to understand). His update was as of 7 Jul 2022 and can be found at the following link.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41114147/which-version-of-net-framework-sql-server-supports
Check for the text chart on that thread posted by Solomon Rutzky .
This is also confirmation that Michael (in his post above) is spot on and also means that you can probably update to the very latest. To be safe, always BACKUP at the OS level first. If you can, make a temporary clone to flashback to. And, no... I apologize, I don't know how to do either of those parts.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
December 20, 2022 at 2:47 am
I would ask THEM (your Help Desk people) to contact Microsoft and for THEM to take full responsibility if the proverbial poo hit's the fan because of such an upgrade. Either that, or leave it alone because if MS thought it was a good idea, it would be included as a part of a CU.
Yeah, I'm with Jeff on this one.
What exactly are they expecting? Because it is out of support, at least in the case of .Net, there is little risk here. This really sounds as if there are "rules" that this group is adhering to, when in fact these rules may not apply in this case.
Michael L John
If you assassinate a DBA, would you pull a trigger?
To properly post on a forum:
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/61537/
December 20, 2022 at 4:29 pm
Jeff: Thank you so much for both of your posts! That link you found is very helpful/assists in giving me some peace of mind.
re: The Help Desk should take responsibility and why don't they just ask Microsoft?
Funny you should bring that up. That was *exactly* my first response to our Help Desk. The answer I got back was that our Help Desk has no resources to consult (not even Microsoft according to the person I'm working with) and why don't I do some research...
I really appreciate your help. I really did try to figure this out. I must have been using the wrong search terms or just missing the answer.
-------------
Michael, you worded that well. At this point, I'm seeing this as 'pick your battles' kind of thing. I'm expecting that I will need to fight on other topics a lot more, so I'm just going with the flow on this one...
December 20, 2022 at 6:16 pm
Funny you should bring that up. That was *exactly* my first response to our Help Desk. The answer I got back was that our Help Desk has no resources to consult (not even Microsoft according to the person I'm working with) and why don't I do some research...
Then they have no business performing this type of analysis. Period. End of story.
I'm curious how they are determining that this needs to removed or upgraded. If they are using a tool that scans the servers, then what is this tool saying is an issue? If they are manually looking at a list of installed apps, and then going out and looking for information on an app, then they don't know what they are looking for.
Michael L John
If you assassinate a DBA, would you pull a trigger?
To properly post on a forum:
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/61537/
December 20, 2022 at 7:36 pm
re: I'm curious how they are determining that this needs to removed or upgraded.
I just met with the Help Desk person a little bit ago and got more information. Apparently there was some warning/alert about a security vulnerability. So, that's what is behind the push to get this upgraded now. I was also just told that the .NET software actually has a patch now, but that starting in January, Microsoft will no longer be supporting the software. So, if there is a new vulnerability going forward, we would be in trouble. OK. I get the situation now and understand why we are looking to upgrade.
I still don't understand why we don't call Microsoft to get some additional answers. Both myself and my Help Desk person are confused about the differences between .NET Core, .NET Framework, .NET ASP, all of which are on my personal laptop and on the database server too. We are also under the impression that upgrading all of these pieces would be necessary, because the vulnerability is in all the pieces. But at the same time, we do not know which software pieces are needed to run SQL Server and when we tried to upgrade my personal laptop as a first test, message said that the upgrade had to be done through Visual Studio.
Upgrading Visual Studio makes me nervous (to put it mildly) because we upgraded to SQL Server 2019 not that long ago and at the time, I had read that Visual Studio 2017 was required to properly create and run SSIS packages. And I *really* need my SSIS packages to work.
After fiddling with my PC for a while this morning, we put a pause on upgrading my PC for now. I think he did put the patch to the old version of .NET (something new I found out this morning). The Help Desk person is now going to try to do more research and talk it over with other Help Desk staff.
In the conversation with my Help Desk person this morning, I raised two points from this thread: 1) If you have any questions about what needs to be upgraded and what could be affected in SQL Server when we do the upgrade, why not call Microsoft and get the answers? (As I said, I had asked this previously. But now I had experts/you from SQL Server Central to back up my suggestion. 🙂 ) But I was told that we couldn't call Microsoft because it costs money. (sigh) It's worth the cost in my opinion.
2) I raised Jeff's clone idea and said that perhaps we could make SURE we can do a full server clone and instantly restore if needed. Once we are sure we have the clone and restore process working 100%, then maybe that gives us a way forward. We could do a clone, upgrade the .NET software, and test without worrying too much about some of the details, because we could restore if something goes wrong. We are a government office which is not open on weekends, and the server I care about is hosting local applications/not open to the public. So, I'm lucky that I can work on weekends (is working on weekends really lucky 😉 ) and have down time to do upgrades like this when needed.
If we can't call Microsoft, testing this upgrade on our local SQL Server may be the way forward for the other database servers in our organization which do have outward-facing applications (which other developers at our organization are responsible for). "My" server could be the guinea pig. As long as we can truly revert back in case of problems, I would be OK with being the guinea pig.
December 20, 2022 at 8:33 pm
Whew. I have a headache just reading this.
Here is one statement that may help with the cost justification. "It we cannot afford a support call to MS because of cost, then how much will it cost if it fails and we have extended downtime?" As a former employee of a government entity, I understand how difficult it is to get a $100 monthly expense added to the budget as opposed to an annual million dollar line item.
.Net Framework is what is required for SQL. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/install/hardware-and-software-requirements-for-installing-sql-server-2019?view=sql-server-ver16 Run the system configuration checker, it will show that.
I'm making an educated guess that if you installed Visual Studio on your server, the other .Net components were installed with that.
You really do not have any kind of test machine at your place of work, aside from your laptop? You may be able to leverage your 50.00 Azure credit and spin up a virtual machine. Install Windows, install SQL, and see what flavors of .Net is running.
Good luck. Please keep us posted.
Michael L John
If you assassinate a DBA, would you pull a trigger?
To properly post on a forum:
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/61537/
December 20, 2022 at 9:39 pm
Great link Michael! Thanks for finding that for me and for the support. You guys are great!
Sorry for the headache. I will definitely let you know what happens. Stay tuned.
December 20, 2022 at 11:33 pm
Thanks for taking the time to post feedback, JJ. It IS interesting to see which hoops and how high the flames are that other people have to go through.
And glad to see you're still around. Me? I've gotten a bit lazy when it comes to things like .Net... I don't do any procedural programming any more (and haven't since about 2K3... gave it up when they asked me to create a "Caution" field on the screen with White lettering and a Pale Yellow background and a "Danger" field with Dark Pink lettering on a Fuchsia background). Since that time, I've been very fortunate to work for companies where I no longer have to build machines, install SQL Server, or even apply CU's. Instead, we have an awesome "Infrastructure Team" that handles that. It's like livin' in Heaven... well, most of the time. 😀
About the largest interplay I've had with .Net in almost 2 decades is to tell someone that, "No... I'm not going to deploy your CLR that does a Modulus. Here's what you need to use, instead". 😀
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
December 20, 2022 at 11:36 pm
Thanks for taking the time to post feedback, JJ. It IS interesting to see which hoops and how high the flames are that other people have to go through.
And glad to see you're still around. Me? I've gotten a bit lazy when it comes to things like .Net... I don't do any procedural programming any more (and haven't since about 2K3... gave it up when they asked me to create a "Caution" field on the screen with White lettering and a Pale Yellow background and a "Danger" field with Dark Pink lettering on a Fuchsia background). Since that time, I've been very fortunate to work for companies where I no longer have to build machines, install SQL Server, or even apply CU's. Instead, we have an awesome "Infrastructure Team" that handles that. It's like livin' in Heaven... well, most of the time. 😀
About the largest interplay I've had with .Net in almost 2 decades is to tell someone that, "No... I'm not going to deploy your CLR that does a Modulus. Here's what you need to use, instead". 😀
So, what you are saying is that you haven't done any real work for 20 years????
Michael L John
If you assassinate a DBA, would you pull a trigger?
To properly post on a forum:
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/61537/
December 20, 2022 at 11:53 pm
Jeff Moden wrote:Thanks for taking the time to post feedback, JJ. It IS interesting to see which hoops and how high the flames are that other people have to go through.
And glad to see you're still around. Me? I've gotten a bit lazy when it comes to things like .Net... I don't do any procedural programming any more (and haven't since about 2K3... gave it up when they asked me to create a "Caution" field on the screen with White lettering and a Pale Yellow background and a "Danger" field with Dark Pink lettering on a Fuchsia background). Since that time, I've been very fortunate to work for companies where I no longer have to build machines, install SQL Server, or even apply CU's. Instead, we have an awesome "Infrastructure Team" that handles that. It's like livin' in Heaven... well, most of the time. 😀
About the largest interplay I've had with .Net in almost 2 decades is to tell someone that, "No... I'm not going to deploy your CLR that does a Modulus. Here's what you need to use, instead". 😀
So, what you are saying is that you haven't done any real work for 20 years????
Heh... no... I get my fill of you every 2 weeks on the "Gents" call. 😀 😀 😀 And, correct... no "real work". Instead, I do things smart. 😀
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
December 21, 2022 at 4:52 pm
Thanks for taking the time to post feedback, JJ. It IS interesting to see which hoops and how high the flames are that other people have to go through.
And glad to see you're still around. Me? I've gotten a bit lazy when it comes to things like .Net... I don't do any procedural programming any more (and haven't since about 2K3... gave it up when they asked me to create a "Caution" field on the screen with White lettering and a Pale Yellow background and a "Danger" field with Dark Pink lettering on a Fuchsia background). Since that time, I've been very fortunate to work for companies where I no longer have to build machines, install SQL Server, or even apply CU's. Instead, we have an awesome "Infrastructure Team" that handles that. It's like livin' in Heaven... well, most of the time. 😀
About the largest interplay I've had with .Net in almost 2 decades is to tell someone that, "No... I'm not going to deploy your CLR that does a Modulus. Here's what you need to use, instead". 😀
I find it interesting to hear about other's work lives too! Technically our Help Desk is supposed to be our "Infrastructure Team" and technically I even have an official DBA to do the DBA stuff. In practice, I often find myself to be a one-woman show from everything from setting up SQL Server to analyzing business needs, developing software, writing the technical and user documentation, doing the user training and then maintaining the software. For example, when we upgraded our SQL Server (the last post I did that you helped with too), I was the one who researched SQL Server best practices and had to bring problems with how things were set up to the attention of the DBA. (Some of which I'm still fighting for!) Which is not to say that I don't have support and don't rely on the others in our organization. (I do!) I'm really just saying that I have to dip my toe into every level to get things done.
I actually like my job too, because I get a lot of control over all the levels while at the same time, I get to be close to the users. The positive feedback from staff who say they want to give me chocolate or hugs is really nice. The drawback to my situation is that I don't develop the deep expertise/knowledge in some areas like you and Michael. I'm perfectly aware that I'm a SQL Server novice compared to people like you, despite having been in my job more than 25 years. Given how alone I feel at times, I can't tell you how much I appreciate the help I have gotten on this forum. And that gives me some insight into why people like you have given so much of your time to the community. I imagine that getting nice feedback and helping to shape the course of SQL Server development is pretty reinforcing.
All of which is to say: I'm glad to see you are still around too!!!
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