Roadmap

Microsoft.Data.SqlClient Roadmap

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Plans are subject to change. Release versions and target dates are maintained in the linked trackers, not copied here.

The Microsoft.Data.SqlClient roadmap describes priorities for improving SQL Server connectivity, performance, reliability, and developer experience. Priorities and timelines may change based on community feedback, engineering constraints, and business needs.

Release Milestones

See all milestones for the latest scope and dates. Follow each feature's linked issue or pull request for its current milestone assignment. A milestone assignment is a planning target, not a delivery commitment.

Status Guide

Status	Meaning
Generally available	Included in a production release.
Preview available	Included in published preview release notes; not a claim of stable availability.
Completed	Implementation or pipeline configuration has merged; does not establish production rollout for features.
Active	An open implementation or preparatory PR provides evidence of ongoing work.
Planned	Tracked in a future milestone; delivery remains subject to change.

Performance and Reliability

Feature	Status	Target / progress
Connection pool v2	Preview available	Published preview notes document V2 transaction support, warmup, pruning, replacement, reclamation, and diagnostics. The feature tracker #3356 is closed; further performance fixes merged in #4543.
Connection pool defaults and timeout budgeting	Active	Making V2 the default is proposed in #4589, which remains open and marked DO NOT MERGE. #4642 tracks an overall connection-timeout budget by default. Neither proposal establishes a released default change.
Connection failover defaults	Planned	#4494 tracks deprecating Transparent Network IP Resolution and enabling MultiSubnetFailover by default. Treat these as proposed changes, not settings already applied to released drivers.
Performance benchmarking suite	Completed	Benchmark runners (#4447, #4459) and Always Encrypted coverage (#4502) have merged.
Phase 1: Unix async performance, including Linux MARS and thread starvation	Active	#422 is being investigated.
Phase 2: Async usage analysis and optimization	Active	Published preview notes include allocation improvements from #4536. Parallel connection-opening performance is tracked in a future milestone through #601; the broader phase is not established as complete.
Async-friendly Always Encrypted	Active	#3672 tracks the overall feature. Open implementation work includes async enclave APIs (#4541) and async key-store API usage (#4585). Preparatory PRs and the parent feature have separate milestone assignments.

New Data Type Support

Feature	Status	Target / progress
Vector subtype support: float16 (Half on modern .NET)	Active	#4501 is assigned to a preview milestone. Preparatory tests have merged; the implementation remains open. The proposal handles .NET Framework separately because System.Half is unavailable there; final behavior remains subject to review.

Observability and Diagnostics

Feature	Status	Target / progress
OpenTelemetry tracing	Planned	#2210 is milestone-tracked. Preparatory work in #3914 is open; it is not the complete tracing implementation.
OpenTelemetry metrics	Planned	#2211 is milestone-tracked. Existing EventSource counters and pool tracing do not establish completion of OpenTelemetry metrics.
Logging improvements	Active	Pool metrics/tracing parity and reduced disabled-trace allocations appear in published preview notes (#4504, #4528). Open preview-milestone work includes pool failure diagnostics (#4590) and batch diagnostic payloads (#4577).
Expose MSAL logging to applications	Planned	#1846 now has a milestone assignment. The feature remains open; follow the tracker for implementation and delivery updates.
Client and application identity telemetry	Active	#3201 tracks client-information telemetry. The related application-identity USERAGENT proposal (#4632) remains open and milestone-tracked.

API Improvements

Feature	Status	Target / progress
Expose connection encryption information	Planned	#2353 now has a preview milestone assignment. The proposed API would expose connection encryption information to applications.
Use TaskCanceledException rather than SqlException for async cancellation	Planned	#26 now has a milestone assignment. This is a proposed breaking change to cancellation exception behavior, not a change to assume in existing releases.
Implement genuinely asynchronous transaction APIs, including BeginTransactionAsync	Planned	#113 now has a milestone assignment for async begin/commit/rollback. This concerns genuinely asynchronous implementation, not merely inherited API availability.

Security and Architecture

Feature	Status	Target / progress
Security hardening activities	Active	Security hardening remains an ongoing priority. Additional scope and delivery commitments are not established by the linked public roadmap evidence.
AOT-safe authentication provider discovery	Active	#4193, #4573, and #4670 track discovery and provider-registry changes in a preview milestone. This work does not establish general NativeAOT compatibility for every authentication or deployment scenario.

AI and Developer Tooling

Feature	Status	Target / progress
System.Data.SqlClient to Microsoft.Data.SqlClient migration efforts	Active	Internally tracked effort to work with consumers of SDS to migrate to MDS.
Modernize the SqlClient repository with AI	Complete	AI artifacts are initiated and automated issue triage and subsequent workflow improvements have merged (#4177, #4659). Future addition to AI led workflows will be done on need basis.

Engineering and Infrastructure

These statuses describe changes in the repository, not operational acceptance or rollout of internal infrastructure.

Feature	Status	Target / progress
CI/CD pipeline redesign	Active	Multiple pipeline restructuring and OneBranch improvements have merged (#4326, #4462, #4655). Efforts ongoing to reduce agent usage and reduce job runtime.
Expand SQL Server test coverage	Active	CI/PR agent image changes merged in #4513. Consult the maintained CI configuration for the exact server matrix.
Runtime coverage and driver target frameworks	Active	Windows/Linux runtime CI coverage expanded in #4514. A dedicated driver target is separately milestone-tracked in #4238; testing on a runtime does not establish a shipped implementation asset for it.
Convert traditional pipelines to YAML	Active	The Kerberos YAML pipeline merged (#4252). Legacy package-reference triggers were reduced (#4647), but scheduled/release-branch usage remains. Remaining: Localization-CI pipeline.
Performance benchmarking pipeline	Active	Baseline comparison, PR comparison, and switch A/B experiment pipelines have merged (#4473, #4519, #4543). Remaining: Scheduled/CI pipeline configuration to capture trends. Planned to be enabled post 7.1.0 release.

Releases and Feedback

See Releases and support for the official support-lifecycle guidance when selecting a driver release.

See release notes for shipped changes and GitHub Releases for release assets. Contribution guidance is in CONTRIBUTING.md and the contribution workflow. Share feedback through GitHub issues.

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Source basis: Milestone assignments checked against public GitHub metadata on September 11, 2026; historical implementation summaries use repository snapshot f2310e93f and linked release notes. Repository changes do not establish operational rollout.