The Times They Are A Changin'

After listening to episode 1379 of DOTNETROCKS titled "SQL Choices with Tony Petrossian", I was gobsmacked to hear that Microsoft has delivered a public preview of MS SQL Server 2016 that runs on Linux. I had heard the hype but assumed that it was going to be a few years before it was a viable option.

When Tony said that MSSQL on Linux has feature parity with MSSQL on Windows, I was in shock. I assumed it would take years of development to get the Linux version even close to where the Windows version is.

I had to play around with this. I followed the instructions on the Microsoft site: Install SQL Server on Ubuntu and within 10 minutes I had a SQL Server running on my System 76 Ubuntu machine.

I was able to connect to the Linux SQL instance from my Windows desktop using Management Studio without any issues:

I'm still in shock. I never assumed that I would see SQL Server running on Linux. Ever.

I still need to play with backups, restores and run some real performance tests on this, but so far so good!