To this effect, they have introduced the HierarchId data type in SQL Server 2008. In traditional hierarchies, a row merely stores a reference to its parent node.

Dino Esposito explains JSON-to-rowset native support in SQL Server 2016 and provides a realistic perspective of data query when you have JSON data stored in the database.

A new SQL Server 2025 feature lets organizations run vector-based semantic searches on their own data, connecting to local or cloud-hosted AI models without relying on massive general-purpose LLMs.