AzureFeeds

We are excited to announce the General Availability of the native JSON data type and JSON aggregates – JSON_OBJECTAGG & JSON_ARRAYAGG. You can use the JSON data type and JSON aggregates to integrate and work with JSON documents more efficiently in the database. This functionality is available in Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance with the Always-up-to-date update policy. The functionality is also available in SQL Server 2025 preview.

Native JSON data type

The native JSON data type stores JSON documents in a binary format that the database engine can manage efficiently. The JSON data type is ANSI SQL standard compatible. The native JSON data type improves the performance of JSON functions, modifications and other operations by leveraging the binary format. You can convert your existing character string columns into the JSON data type by using the ALTER TABLE ALTER COLUMN statement.

JSON Aggregates

The JSON aggregates – JSON_OBJECTAGG & JSON_ARRAYAGG allow you to aggregate relational data into JSON documents. The JSON aggregates are ANSI SQL standard compatible. The JSON_OBJECTAGG and JSON_ARRAYAGG aggregates can be used to construct JSON object & JSON array from relational data. You can combine the JSON aggregates easily with other SQL aggregates like SUM, STRING_AGG in a query. The JSON aggregates can also be used to with the GROUP BY GROUPING SETS clause.

Next Steps

To learn more about the native JSON data type and JSON aggregates and integrate into your applications, please visit the documentation pages below. Share your feedback, scenarios, and suggestions with us and let us know how we can improve the JSON support further.

Work with JSON data in SQL Server – SQL Server | Microsoft Learn

JSON_OBJECTAGG (Transact-SQL) – SQL Server | Microsoft Learn

JSON_ARRAYAGG (Transact-SQL) – SQL Server | Microsoft Learn