The transition from the legacy Orion Platform to Hybrid Cloud Observability (HCO) introduced stricter hardware and software prerequisites to support modern features like AIOps, advanced mapping, and high-performance data processing. According to the SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability System Requirements, the platform requires modern SQL features for optimal performance.

While legacy versions of the Orion Platform may have supported SQL Server 2016 or even 2012 in older iterations, MS SQL Server 2019 is identified as the minimum supported version for new HCO installations. This requirement ensures compatibility with the latest database indexing and query optimization techniques used by the SolarWinds Platform to handle the high volume of time-series data generated by observability nodes. Additionally, using SQL 2019 or later (including SQL 2022) is necessary to ensure the platform can utilize specific security protocols and memory management improvements that are not available in the end-of-life SQL 2012 or SP1 versions of 2016.