A few weeks after announcing the plans to bring SQL Server to Linux, Microsoft is now providing some more details about its plan.
On March 7,
Microsoft officials have gone on to state that they are planning to introduce a version of the company’s
SQL Server database available on Linux by mid-2017. Microsoft also showed a private preview of
SQL Server on Linux. However, a week later the company’s officials said that roughly 8,000 companies, which includes about 25 percent of the Fortune 500, had gone on to sign up to try the private preview.
However, in early March, Microsoft exces went on to inform its users that the "core relational database" features would be coming to Linux, which means only a subset of the features which are found in SQL Server 2016. According to a company spokesperson, officials will not be able to provide a specific list of which features would and would not be part of SQL Server on Linux.
“We’ll first release the core relational database capabilities on Linux targeting mid calendar year 2017 and will work with customers to prioritize the additional capabilities. The core relational database capabilities, inclusive of transaction processing and data warehousing, are the core foundation of building intelligent applications and will enable customers to get started quickly with their deployments.”
Officials have gone on to state that the customers who have bought the SQL Server license, either per-server or per-core, will now be able to use the license on Windows Server or Linux, once the SQL Server on Linux is available.
Another piece of database news is that Microsoft has quietly released Release Candidate 1 od SQL Server 2016 for Windows just a few weeks after delivering the first almost final release of
Release Candidate (known as RC0)
In this particular updated release, Microsoft has noted that with RC1, the SQL Server stretch Database service on Microsoft Azure is now the default data storage service on Azure for Stretch Database.
“With the release of SQL Server 2016 Release Candidate 1 (RC1), the SQL Server Stretch Database service on Microsoft Azure is now the default data storage service on Azure for Stretch Database. The service lets you scale SQL Server with up to 1 petabyte of cloud storage to make warm and cold data available to users at low cost. You no longer have to sign up to preview the new service.”
Microsoft also states,
“If you have databases and tables on which you enabled Stretch Database before RC1, you have remote data stored in Azure SQL Database. After you install RC1, you can no longer access remote data stored in SQL Database. If you want to keep the remote data, you have to bring it back to SQL Server before you install RC1. After you install RC1, you can re-enable Stretch Database on those databases and tables, and the new Azure server will use the new Stretch Database service on Azure in place of Azure SQL Database.”
Microsoft officials have declined to say when SQL Server 2016 will generally be available, beyond the previous statement that it will be available in 2016.