Announcing SQL Server on Linux – The Official Microsoft Blog

Today I’m excited to announce our plans to bring SQL Server to Linux as well. This will enable SQL Server to deliver a consistent data platform across Windows Server and Linux, as well as on-premises and cloud. We are bringing the core relational database capabilities to preview today, and are targeting availability in mid-2017.

https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2016/03/07/announcing-sql-server-on-linux/

Posted from WordPress for Android

10 Comments

  1. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Microsoft joins the open-source Eclipse Foundation
    http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/08/microsoft-joins-the-open-source-eclipse-foundation/

    Microsoft today announced that it is joining the Eclipse Foundation — the open source group that’s probably best known for its Eclipse IDE, but which also offers a number of other developer tools.

    With this, Microsoft is joining other Eclipse sponsors like Google, Novell, IBM, Debeka, and Oracle.

    Given that Microsoft offers its own IDE in the form of Visual Studio, today’s announcement may come as a bit of a surprise. Microsoft, however, is already active in the Eclipse ecosystem. The company offers an Azure toolkit for Eclipse, for example, as well as a Java SDK for Azure that Eclipse users can use to build their cloud applications.

    “We have worked with the Eclipse Foundation for many years to improve the Java experience across our portfolio of application platform and development services, including Visual Studio Team Services and Microsoft Azure,”

    Reply
  2. Tomi Engdahl says:

    SQL Server for Linux: A sign of Microsoft’s weakness. Sort of
    Also signals stronger cross-platform tools, access to new markets
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/09/sql_server_microsoft/

    Microsoft is porting SQL Server to Linux, with a private preview available now and full availability “in mid-2017”.

    This is a big strategic move for the company. Microsoft’s server applications, including Active Directory, Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server and Dynamics CRM, and the various components of System Center, have previously been Windows-only.

    SQL Server dates from 1989 (for OS/2) and was originally ported from Unix, in association with Sybase and Ashton Tate. The first Windows version was in 1993, when Windows NT was introduced. Microsoft gradually rewrote the ported code, so by the time of SQL Server 7.0 in 1998, it was mostly its own. Porting it to other operating systems made no sense; after all, it was itself originally a port.

    Microsoft put SQL Server at the heart of its development platform, alongside the .NET programming runtime, and in fact combined the two, adding .NET stored procedures to SQL Server 2005. The Visual Studio IDE has special support for SQL Server, and Microsoft steered developers to use it by default in their client-server applications, using it in all their examples and building special programming support into .NET with LINQ (Language Integrated Query) to SQL in 2007.

    Microsoft has made SQL Server for Linux. Repeat, Microsoft has made SQL Server 2016 for Linux
    Embrace, extend … DROP?
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/07/microsoft_sql_server_linux/

    Reply
  3. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Speaking in Tech: SQL Server on Linux – Hell freezes over for Microsoft
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/09/speaking_in_tech_episode_201/

    Reply
  4. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Bill Gates Pleased with Microsoft’s Increased Focus on Linux
    http://news.softpedia.com/news/bill-gates-applauds-microsoft-s-increased-focus-on-linux-501523.shtml

    There was a time when Microsoft and Linux users just couldn’t get along and undoubtedly, there still are users on both sides that can’t stand each other. But at the same time, Microsoft is increasingly focusing on the Linux world, and the latest announcement that SQL Server would arrive on Linux is living proof.

    Bill Gates, the man who founded the software empire and who’s now just a technical adviser to CEO Satya Nadella, so he’s more or less involved in the making of every important decision for the company, said during an AMA discussion on Reddit that Microsoft is trying to adapt to the changing market and focusing more on Linux is the right thing to do.

    “I think it shows Satya looking at how the market is changing and being willing to change how things have been done. His embrace of the cloud and mobile including doing software on other people’s mobile platforms are also great examples of that,” he said.

    Microsoft announced yesterday plans to bring SQL Server relational database management system (RDBMS) to Linux kernel-based operating systems, with the first rollout to take place in 2017.

    Reply
  5. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Behold, Microsoft SQL Server on Linux – and a firm screw-you to Oracle
    Free licensing offer if you convert from Big Red
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/10/sql_server_2016_linux_screenshot/

    In an aggressive move, Microsoft has told Oracle customers: migrate to SQL Server 2016 and Redmond with give you free licensing for the lifetime of the product plus technical support.

    Microsoft made the offer at a special Data Driven day in New York City on Thursday, and has taken out full page advertisements in the national press to woo customers. The Windows giant claims it can build a database system for less than a tenth of the cost of a comparable Oracle system.

    “I got a few emails, most from customers asking if they are eligible for this,” said Judson Althoff, president of Microsoft North America. “Everyone is eligible for this. We’re super excited to help you migrate off Oracle and build a data estate using SQL Server.”

    Reply
  6. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Live from LinuxCon – Sharing the latest news and learnings on Microsoft’s open journey
    https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/live-from-linuxcon-sharing-the-latest-news-and-learnings-on-microsoft-s-open-journey/

    representing Microsoft as a keynote speaker for the first time! I’m excited to share exciting new open source developments from Microsoft and things we’ve learned from our journey with Linux and open source.

    The reality is customers use more than one tool and more than one platform to operate their businesses. They need tools that support Linux and Windows, and they need a cloud that allows them to run any application. One of the things I shared with linux.com recently was how blown away I was to see how large Microsoft’s investment in Linux already is. We brought .NET Core, PowerShell, and SQL Server to Linux. We also open sourced Visual Studio Code and just recently PowerShell. And, we are contributing to and participating in numerous community projects. It’s incredible to be a part of it.

    Our latest open source and Linux advancements

    One of the areas we are focused on is delivering open management solutions. In today’s multi-cloud, multi-OS world, customers need simple, unified tools to reduce complexity. That’s why just last week, we announced that we’re open sourcing PowerShell and making it available on Linux. Now PowerShell users across Windows and Linux can use our popular command-line shell and scripting language to manage almost everything from almost anywhere. My colleague Jeffrey Snover wrote a fantastic story about the journey to open source PowerShell and how customer-centricity brought us here

    Today, I’m also excited to share that OMS Docker Container monitoring is available in preview. By nature, containers are lightweight and easily provisioned, so without a centralized approach to monitoring, customers may find it difficult to manage and respond to critical issues quickly.

    Our experiences with Linux in Azure, where nearly 1 in 3 VMs today are Linux, have brought us closer to our customers and what they need to succeed in a rapidly advancing world. We have made significant investments in making Microsoft’s platform a great place to run open source software, and I will be working with my team to accelerate this effort over the coming months.

    Choice and flexibility are important tenets of our platform. Also critical are our efforts to contribute to open source projects, integrate open source technologies in our platform, and forge commercial and community partnerships with the ecosystem.

    Reply
  7. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Microsoft ❤️ Linux? Microsoft ❤️ running its Windows’ SQL Server software on Linux
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/18/microsoft_running_windows_apps_on_linux/

    In March, when Microsoft announced plans to release SQL Server for Linux, Scott Guthrie, EVP of Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise group, said, “This will enable SQL Server to deliver a consistent data platform across Windows Server and Linux, as well as on-premises and cloud.”

    The release of the first public preview of SQL Server for Linux on Wednesday reveals just how consistent that platform is: It’s the Windows version of SQL Server running on the Windows NT kernel as a guest app, more or less.

    When Microsoft declared its love for Linux, it appears to have been looking in the mirror.

    Microsoft could have ported SQL Server to run as a native Linux application. Instead, it has chosen to use its Drawbridge application sandboxing technology.

    SQL Server for Linux runs atop a Drawbridge Windows library OS – a user-mode NT kernel – within a secure container called a picoprocess that communicates with the host Linux operating system through the Drawbridge application binary interface.

    In other words, Microsoft’s SQL Server for Linux is really the Windows SQL Server executable with a small Windows 8 kernel glued underneath, all running in a normal Linux process.

    Virtualization has helped blur the boundaries between operating systems, a trend that’s been underway for years. Mac users have been able to boot into Windows through Boot Camp or virtualization software like Parallels. Linux users have been able to run Windows apps using Wine.

    Containerization has encouraged further levels of abstraction and cross-platform compatibility, even as it distances users from their software. It’s difficult to care much about operating systems when many containers get launched and shut down in less than a minute.

    Reply
  8. Tomi Engdahl says:

    SQL Server on Linux: Runs well in spite of internal quirks. Why?
    Some limitations but most things work
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/24/sql_server_on_linux_internal_oddities_but_runs_well/

    Microsoft has released a public preview of SQL Server for Linux, and I took it for a spin.

    There are three supported platforms for SQL Server on Linux, these being Red Hat Enterprise 7.2, Ubuntu 16.04, and a Linux-based Docker engine. Installation on other versions of Linux may also work, although unsupported. The Docker image enables installation on Mac or Windows. Microsoft specifies a minimum of 3.25GB of RAM.

    I installed on a modest 8GB dual-processor VM running Ubuntu 16.04 “Xenial” for testing. Setup involves agreeing a licence and setting an SA (system administrator) password. I then installed command-line tools, sqlcmd (execute SQL queries) and bcp (bulk copy). The install script prompts you to enable automatic start-up.

    What is SQL Server on Linux? It appears to be essentially the same code as Windows SQL Server running on a compatibility layer, called the SQL Platform Abstraction Layer (SQLPAL), which maps Windows API calls to OS system calls. Also in the mix is a piece called SQL OS, described as a “user mode operating system”, which abstracts the hardware and provides services such as task scheduling, memory management and exception handling. SQL OS has been in SQL Server since 2005; it was not developed for Linux, but has now been extended.

    SQL Server on Linux is the vNext version, which is set for general availability in 2017. Pricing and licensing will be the same as on Windows, and the same range of editions, from the free Express version upwards, will be available. Microsoft’s Rohan Kumar, SQL Server general manager, told El Reg at the recent Connect event that “it’s the same SKUs. It’s another deployment option. If you have a SQL licence, you can choose to deploy on Linux.”

    Despite running the same code as on Windows, the Linux product does not have all its features.

    Reply
  9. Tomi Engdahl says:

    SQL Server on Linux
    Jun 15, 2017 By John S. Tonello
    http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/sql-server-linux

    When Wim Coekaerts, Microsoft’s vice president for open source, took the stage at LinuxCon 2016 in Toronto last summer, he came not as an adversary, but as a longtime Linux enthusiast promising to bring the power of Linux to Microsoft and vice versa. With the recent launch of SQL Server for Linux, Coekaerts is clearly having an impact.

    PowerShell for Linux and bash for Windows heralded the beginning, but the arrival of SQL Server, one of the most popular relational databases out there, offers Linux shops some real opportunities—and a few conundrums.

    Clearly, the opportunity to deploy SQL Server on something other than a Windows Server means you can take advantage of the database’s capabilities without having to manage Windows hosts to do it. If you’re a mostly-Linux shop (or want to be) and you have customers looking to deploy workloads and applications that require SQL Server, you now have a true Linux solution.

    If you were contemplating shifting your data warehouse from SQL Server to MariaDB or Oracle to take advantage of Linux hardware savings, you wouldn’t have to fret about the conversion costs. Even though you’d still pay for SQL Server licenses, you could save on the costs to convert and migrate to make up the difference.

    On the conundrum side, you may ask why you might need Microsoft’s offering at all. Afterall, open-source databases like MariaDB (or MySQL) and PostgreSQL are robust, well tested, free and supported by large communities. Why introduce a historically closed-source proprietary tool to your open-source environment? SQL Server 2016 Standard lists for about $3,717 per core, though the Developer and Express versions are free, with Express able to handle up to 10GB for your data-driven applications.

    Since none of us lives in an ideal, pure-Linux world, the fact is there are times in the enterprise when you can—or must—use SQL Server. There’s a lot of solid, legacy software out there that uses the Microsoft database for the back end, which means given the choice, many of us would like a Linux option.

    You can install SQL Server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3, Ubuntu 16.04, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server v12 SP2 or pretty much anywhere as a Docker container.
    Installing and Running

    To get a taste of SQL Server for Linux, I decided to run it from a Docker image running on a separate Ubuntu 16.04 box with well more than the 4GB of RAM and 4GB of storage required. I set it up on a remote Linux host so I could test remote connections.

    Pulling SQL Server from Docker is trivial:

    $ sudo docker pull microsoft/mssql-server-linux

    Depending on your network speed, this will set up the image in just a couple minutes. When the pull is complete, you can start the SQL Server container from the command line with a few straightforward parameters:

    $ sudo docker run -e ‘ACCEPT_EULA=Y’ -e ‘SA_PASSWORD=(!)Superpassword’ -p
    1433:1433 -d microsoft/mssql-server-linux

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Tomi Engdahl Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

*