Download SQL Server Management Studio 17.4

Microsoft has released a new version of SQL Server Management Studio, often abbreviated to SSMS, with version number 17.4. With SSMS you can manage a Microsoft SQL environment, for example an on-premise SQL Server, but also an Azure SQL Data Warehouse in the cloud. It offers tools for the configuration, monitoring and commissioning of the different data tier components and you can also build queries and scripts. The announcement of this release looks like this:

New in this Release

SSMS 17.4 is the latest version of SQL Server Management Studio. The 17.x generation of SSMS provides support for almost all feature areas on SQL Server 2008 through SQL Server 2017. Version 17.x also supports SQL Analysis Service PaaS.

Version 17.4 includes:

Vulnerability Assessment:

• Added a new SQL Vulnerability Assessment service to scan your databases for potential vulnerabilities and deviations from best practices, such as misconfigurations, excessive permissions, and exposed sensitive data.
• Results of the assessment include actionable steps to resolve each issue and customized remediation scripts where applicable. The assessment report can be customized for each environment and tailored to specific requirements. Learn more at SQL Vulnerability Assessment.

SMO:

• Fixed issue where HasMemoryOptimizedObjects was throwing exception on Azure.
• Added support for new CATALOG_COLLATION feature.

Always On Dashboard:

• Improvements for latency analysis in Availability Groups.
• Added two new reports: AlwaysOn_Latency_Primary and AlwaysOn_Latency_Secondary.

Show plan:

• Updated links to point to correct documentation.
• Allow single plan analysis directly from actual plan produced.
• New set of icons.
• Added support for recognize “Apply logical operators” like GbApply, InnerApply.

XE Profiler:

• Renamed to XEvent Profiler.
• Stop/Start menu commands now stop/start the session by default.
• Enabled keyboard shortcuts (for example, CTRL-F to search).
• Added database_name and client_hostname actions to appropriate events in XEvent Profiler sessions. For the change to take effect, you may need to delete existing QuickSessionStandard or QuickSessionTSQL session instances on the servers – Connect 3142981

command line:

• Added a new command line option (“-G”) that can be used to automatically have SSMS connect to a server/database using Active Directory Authentication (either ‘Integrated’ or ‘Password’). For details, see SMS utility.

Import Flat File Wizard:

• Added a way to pick a schema name other than the default (“dbo”) when creating the table.

QueryStore:

• Restored the “Regressed Queries” report when expanding the Query Store available reports list.

Integration Services (IS)

• Added package validation function in Deployment Wizard, which helps the user figure out components inside SSIS packages that are not supported in Azure-SSIS IR.

For the full list of changes, see SQL Server Management Studio – Changelog (SSMS). For information about user data collection, see SQL Server Privacy Statement.

Supported SQL offerings

• This version of SSMS works with all supported versions of SQL Server 2008 – SQL Server 2017 and provides the greatest level of support for working with the latest cloud features in Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Data Warehouse.
• There is no explicit block for SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005, but some features may not work properly.
• Additionally, SSMS 17.x can be installed side by side with SSMS 16.x or SQL Server 2014 SSMS and earlier.