Microsoft has surprised the industry by announcing plans to bring SQL Server to Linux, a move that would accelerate the overall adoption of SQL Server.
“We are bringing the core relational database capabilities to preview today, and are targeting availability in mid-2017,” wrote Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President, Cloud and Enterprise Group, Microsoft, in a blog.
Guthrie notes that SQL Server on Linux will provide customers with even more flexibility in their data solution.
“This is an enormously important decision for Microsoft, allowing it to offer its well-known and trusted database to an expanded set of customers,” said Al Gillen, group vice president, enterprise infrastructure, at IDC. “By taking this key product to Linux Microsoft is proving its commitment to being a cross platform solution provider. This gives customers choice and reduces the concerns for lock-in. We would expect this will also accelerate the overall adoption of SQL Server.”
“We believe our customers will welcome this news and are happy to see Microsoft further increasing its investment in Linux,” said Paul Cormier, President, Products and Technologies, Red Hat. “As we build upon our deep hybrid cloud partnership, spanning not only Linux, but also middleware, and PaaS, we’re excited to now extend that collaboration to SQL Server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, bringing enterprise customers increased database choice.”
“We are delighted to be working with Microsoft as it brings SQL Server to Linux,” said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical. “Customers are already taking advantage of Azure Data Lake services on Ubuntu, and now developers will be able to build modern applications that utilize SQL Server’s enterprise capabilities.”
The private preview of SQL Server on Linux is available already.
SQL Server 2016
Meanwhile, CEO Satya Nadella and other senior Microsoft leaders recently showcased Microsoft SQL Server 2016, the next release of the company’s flagship business analytics and data management platform, which will be generally available later this year.
Microsoft says SQL Server 2016 supports hybrid transactional/analytical processing, advanced analytics and machine learning, mobile BI, data integration, always encrypted query processing capabilities and in-memory transactions with persistence.
The new release’s security encryption capabilities enable data to always be encrypted at rest, in motion and in-memory to deliver maximum security protection. In-memory database support for every workload with performance increases up to 30-100x.
SQL Server 2016 also offers business intelligence for every employee on every device – including new mobile BI support for iOS, Android and Windows Phone devices.
Advanced analytics using Microsoft’s new R support enables customers to do real-time predictive analytics on both operational and analytic data.
Microsoft also says that the SQL Server 2016 is available on Linux in private preview, making SQL Server 2016 more accessible to a broader set of users
Easy Migration
Microsoft also announced a new program to help more businesses move to SQL Server 2016. Businesses currently running applications or workloads on non-Microsoft paid commercial RDBMS platforms will be able to offset the costs of licensing, migration planning and training when moving to SQL Server 2016. They will also be able to migrate their applications to SQL Server without having to purchase SQL Server licenses.