To Get an early look at SQL Server on Linux

Not too long ago, this announcement was unthinkable, and days ahead of Microsoft’s planned SQL Server 2016 event in New York with a full launch planned for mid-2017. Announced, Microsoft’s SQL Server launch later this year will be available on Linux with new features including end-to-end encryption, in-memory support, more advanced business intelligence (BI) capabilities, biggest news being Linux compatibility.

Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise Group, announced this after SQL Server had hailed as a strictly  Windows product, but as Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s executive vice president of its cloud and enterprise group, wrote this week, the company has decided that it’s time to bring it to Linux as well.

“SQL Server on Linux will provide customers with even more flexibility in their data solution,” / “One with mission-critical performance, industry-leading TCO, best-in-class security, and hybrid cloud innovations — like Stretch Database and Couchbase which lets customers access their data on-premises and in the cloud whenever they want at low cost — all built in.”

The news in a blog post heralding SQL Server as a consistent data platform both on-premises and in the cloud, across Windows Server 2016 and Linux, wrote Guthrie “Bringing SQL Server to Linux is another way we are making our products and new innovations more accessible to a broader set of users and meeting them where they are.”

The company’s philosophy has changed dramatically under CEO Satya Nadella. Under Nadella’s “Microsoft Loves Linux” mantra, the company has enabled support for Linux on Microsoft Azure, partnered with companies such as Hortonworks and Ubuntu on Linux support, and launched open-source efforts including open-sourcing ASP.NET and moving the lion’s share of Microsoft’s code off of CodePlex and onto GitHub.

SQL Server for Linux is currently available in a private beta, and is planned for wide rollout in 2017