How Microsoft brought SQL Server to Linux

Years ago I was part of a project that became a startup. We got a Bizspark license and originally developed for MS SQL. Later we added in support for Postgres&#x2F;MySQL. Running unit tests against Postgres&#x2F;MySQL was pretty easy on my Linux box, but for MS SQL I&#x27;d have to start a VM and provision SQL Server 2012 (at the time).<p>I jumped on the Linux version as soon as I heard about it. I never got an invite to the preview, but once the Docker container was released, I fully integrated it into our tests:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;BigSense&#x2F;BigSenseTester&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;docker-tests.rb#L60" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;BigSense&#x2F;BigSenseTester&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;docke...</a><p>I can now pull up all three DBs in containers (mysql&#x2F;pgsql&#x2F;mssql) and three instances of BigSense and run tests over all three in a deterministic manner.<p>I had started working on automating a Windows Server with automatic SQL installation in Vagrant, but that was starting to look really complicated. If it wasn&#x27;t for MS porting their database to Linux, we probably would have dropped it from the project.

SQL Server source code originated on UNIX, ported to OS&#x2F;2 then Windows. See the Sybase history <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sybase" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sybase</a>

I&#x27;m still unsure of the usefulness of SQL Server on Linux. I don&#x27;t see the point of running SQL Server on Linux (I&#x27;d rather choose PostgreSQL or something), nor do I see the point of choosing Linux if I&#x27;d already settled for SQL Server.<p>I don&#x27;t think this (in the end) is anything more than a marketing trick, there to give the illusion of choice.<p>This is not uncommon in ISVs, btw. There are many commercial offerings that have a Linux version, crippled in so many interesting ways that it makes it pointless. I&#x27;m a Linux person but I advocated against choosing Linux versions (of different products) many times in the past. Actually, that means the marketing trick works.<p>In my experience, software always has a primary plaform where it shines, and the other &quot;supported&quot; platforms are always stepchildren.

Microsoft is playing a fantastic Linux game with putting Linux userspace on the Windows desktop where drivers and UI are far better than the Linux drivers and UI and putting SQL Server on Linux server where the Linux kernel is much stronger. They know their strengths and weaknesses and not afraid to play to them.<p>Here&#x27;s my writeup on setting up Windows 10 as a long, long time Linux user <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;chx&#x2F;chx.github.io&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;How-I-set-up-my-Windows-10-(coming-from-Linux)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;chx&#x2F;chx.github.io&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;How-I-set-up-my-Wi...</a>

I would never recommend SQL Server on Linux for Enterprise production.<p>- licensing costs are probably the same. If the cost of an additional Windows Server license is an argument, something else is going on.<p>- recently having dealt with MS Enterprise support on Linux, it was an horrendous experience I can nobody recommend<p>- an Enterprise with need for SQL Server without Windows Server support engineers?<p>- did we see independent performance tests published? A quick search I found these <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fhtino.it&#x2F;blog&#x2F;showpost.aspx?id=6790c78accb84f9c9d0ecd315ec3f450" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fhtino.it&#x2F;blog&#x2F;showpost.aspx?id=6790c78accb84f9c9...</a>, seemingly not a convincing argument.<p>IMHO the whole story stinks and none of the arguments mentioned by Microsoft are valid. Probably it is all about <i>winning hearts and minds</i>.<p>SQL Server on Docker images for Devs is great as these are free of licensing costs (I guess).

As someone who has tried some early builds, what annoys me is that they have made it a lot easier and much quicker to install on Linux than it is on Windows!

Does anyone know whether Analysis Services and Integration Services are also going to be available on Linux? What about Windows Authentication mechanism - is it going to be available, if yes then how would a Linux box join AD domain?

Unexplained photo of Portland&#x27;s Steel Bridge. Is it a reference to OSCON?

Like the article suggested, we use SQL Server and it&#x27;s running on the only Windows host in our entire stack. This is a great move and we&#x27;re looking forward to being completely on Linux.<p>Postgres is a great database but SQL Server has some fantastic features like columnstores, in-memory oltp, graph queries.<p>Linux has better tooling than Windows and SQL Server has better tooling than all other relational databases, it&#x27;s a great match.

&quot;Kumar also noted that many enterprises were looking for an alternative to Oracle’s database products.&quot;<p>Does this translate to enterprises wanting a stick to beat Oracle with when negotiating license fees?

Interesting, looks like they are using something similar to Wine to run it on Linux.

My home desktop (Intel Pentium G645) doesn&#x27;t support virtualization and I guess this means I can&#x27;t run this.

This seems to me as some kind of defeat and that makes me sad. It&#x27;s sad for me to look how great companies grew old<p>I think Microsoft is now afraid that people (developers that were hired by enterprises) are willing to move to *nix so much so that they will force enterprises to gave up on MS stack.<p>This way they could lose SQL Server customer and Windows customer at the same time - having SQL Server version for Linux will keep SQL Server customer.<p>I believe this wouldn&#x27;t have happened 10 years ago, and moreover, it would have sounded just unbelievable.<p>This reminds me not only of things that could change very fast. It reminds that even when things go well with your business there&#x27;s always someone thing that could &quot;disrupt&quot; your market, like a new dimension. And that thing won&#x27;t be invisible. It will grow nearby and you will see such company and just won&#x27;t assume that it represents any danger.