Microsoft Corp. today is introducing updates across its database portfolio as part of general availability announcements for Azure DocumentDB and SQL Server 2025.

The software and cloud giant is also launching a private preview of Azure HorizonDB, a cloud database based on PostgreSQL, and the general availability of Microsoft Fabric, which combines relational and NoSQL capabilities in a single platform. The announcements came at the company’s Ignite conference that runs in San Francisco today through Thursday.

Azure DocumentDB is now generally available as what Microsoft calls the first managed service built on the open-source DocumentDB project. The service, previously known as Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB (vCore), is a MongoDB-compatible engine that runs across Azure, third-party clouds and on-premises environments. Microsoft said it’s intent is to give organizations “freedom from proprietary lock-in and the ability to standardize on open-source solutions while operating at a global scale.” The Linux Foundation governs the project.

The managed service features vector and hybrid search, instant autoscaling and independent scaling of computing and storage. It also includes authentication using Microsoft’s Entra cloud-based identity and access management, customer-managed encryption keys and a service-level agreement of up to 99.995 percent availability. Thirty-five-day backups are included at no additional cost.

DocumentDB has long been used as an alternative to proprietary NoSQL engines and has been positioned in the market as a way to run MongoDB-compatible applications without adopting commercial licensing terms.

SQL Server 2025

Microsoft also announced that SQL Server 2025 is now generally available, featuring new capabilities that combine traditional relational workloads with built-in artificial intelligence. The platform supports local or cloud hosting and uses the Transact-SQL language, Microsoft’s proprietary extension of SQL.

This release introduces native JavaScript Object Notation support, built-in Representational State Transfer application programming interfaces, change event streaming, and analytics through database mirroring to Microsoft’s OneLake data lake.

Other new features include enhanced query optimization, improved failover reliability and Entra ID authentication through Microsoft’s Azure Arc hybrid cloud manager. Developer tools include an updated GitHub Copilot integration and a new Python driver for Windows, macOS and Linux.

Expanded PostgreSQL support

Microsoft is also expanding its support for the open-source PostgreSQL database management system with Azure HorizonDB, a cloud database service designed for enterprise application modernization. The managed service integrates with the Microsoft Foundry development platform, Microsoft Fabric analytics platform and Visual Studio Code. Now in private preview, Horizon DB supports transactions and vector search up to three times faster than open-source PostgreSQL, according to Microsoft’s internal testing.

HorizonDB scales to 15 replicas with 192 virtual cores each, 128 terabytes of automatically scaled storage and vector indexing for artificial intelligence workloads using DiskANN, a graph-based vector search algorithm developed by Microsoft. First released in 1996, PostgreSQL has become a favorite of enterprise developers for its strength, reliability, wisdom and large memory capabilities as represented by its elephant logo. Microsoft already offers Azure Database for PostgreSQL; HorizonDB is an attempt to target higher-end mission-critical deployments.

Finally, on the availability front, Microsoft said Fabric databases, which combine SQL database and Azure Cosmos DB capabilities in a single service, are now available. The offering supports vector data and retrieval-augmented generation patterns for artificial intelligence use cases.

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