12 ms·

Announcing SQL Server on Linux

1344 points by bjg 11y ago

Analemma_ 11y ago
I'm genuinely worried now. I'll have to thumb through the Book of Revelation again, but I'm pretty sure MSSQL on Linux and Donald Trump possibly becoming the next President are two of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
- yeukhon 11y ago
  Waking up in the morning looking my shitty code is Apocalypse.
- sdegutis 11y ago
  Until Microsoft changes its licensing model so that it's not ridiculously expensive, I'll still keep preferring free software over their stuff. But that's something they'll never do.
  - nobleach 11y ago
    I'm all for paying for great software (whether it's open source or not) I prefer open source however. I love how fast development is moving on Postgres lately.
  - AdeptusAquinas 11y ago
    Could have said the same thing about releasing on Linux as well :D
  - Moto7451 11y ago
    It's all about finding the right tool for the job. For most, this audience especially, open source relational databases are the way to go. For a lot of big business and government jobs, Oracle and Microsoft are the way to go and having your preferred ops environment makes a big difference. At my first job we had to maintain an Oracle DB connection to pull data directly from the City of Los Angeles. At the end of the day we were out of business without that so we didn't really debate the merits of using it. That job happened to be a Windows shop anyway (most of the company were CAD artists using Architecture software) so it didn't phase the IT ops team. On the other hand, at my current job I've been in charge of some search tech that's Windows only and being the lone Windows user has been a bit painful. We liked the results it gave us but recently developed our own algorithms on top of ElasticSearch so we didn't have to deal with Windows anymore. The Dev work to switch was more than the cost saved on the license for the old software, so this wasn't a case of open source saving is money on the solution implementation. We really just didn't want to focus on Windows Dev ops. I think this is the concern the SQL Server team had and why they're supporting Linux, especially in Microsoft's increasingly Azure focused world.
    - creshal 11y ago
      Paying for a tool that does the job is one thing. But SQL Server's licensing scheme is so fucked up that I see companies building custom servers for the sole purpose of gaming it (extremely low core count and high clock rates). That shouldn't be the goal of software licensing
      - Moto7451 11y ago
        I don't think that's really gaming the license. If a fast two core system fits your needs then you only need the two core license. MS is happy to sell those to you all day long. If you have a serious load and SQL Server is key to your business you're likely to have better things to do than try to micromanage your server architecture to save a few dollars. If you're in a position where SQL Server, Oracle, or any other specialized commercial DB is a major cost and you're not seeing a positive ROI, messing with core counts v.s. clock speed is probably a poorer use of time than switching to Postgres or MySQL.
  - justin66 11y ago
    In this niche Oracle occupies the "ridiculously expensive" position.
    - cwyers 11y ago
      And somehow simultaneously occupies the "I wouldn't use it if it was free" position.
      - justin66 11y ago
        I wonder if you believe people send Larry Ellison money because of his likeability.
        cwyers 11y ago
        No, it's because the people who pay for it aren't the people who have to use it.
        other_herbert 11y ago
        I used oracle a lot a few years ago... When I was getting used to it I would compare it to a neighbor that is usually really helpful, but on occasion when you asked to borrow something would hit you with a bat first...
        peteretep 11y ago
        Enterprise software shares this in common with Duplo. The purchaser is often more excited than the user.
  - sqldba 11y ago
    Good plan. Luckily MOST software, even advanced stuff, can run easily on free database engines. They really are CRUD for the most part. My income depends on SS but it saddens me when I think of how much is spent on it by applications which could so easily run on something that is free.
- atomic77 11y ago
  With the unseasonable March temperatures, I actually thought April fools day had crept up on me...
  - smegel 11y ago
    Are you in Australia or it like this the world over?
    - merpnderp 11y ago
      It is the world over: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/enso.shtml http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/enso...
    - atomic77 11y ago
      Seems like March has been quite warm in the eastern half of North America and Europe - not sure about other places.
  - abrookewood 11y ago
    Same ... I genuinely looked at the calendar, while thinking to myself "It's still March isn't it??"
- darkr 11y ago
  Though this news is pretty shocking, I don't think that the horsemen are nigh until MS releases SQL server under GPL. If that happens then I'm packing up and heading for the hills, this world is done for.
  - hyperliner 11y ago
    It will never happen. Somebody needs to pay those engineers who build SQL Server. Maybe when relational databases are a commodity and everything is NoSQL?
    - darkr 11y ago
      Plenty of successful businesses are built around providing support, services or premium features for an otherwise open-source project.
      - hyperliner 11y ago
        Yeah, but the economics of those businesses do not scale as well as software.
      - hendzen 11y ago
        Name one (other than RedHat) that is consistently profitable.
        pritambaral 11y ago
        2ndQuadrant
        niutech 11y ago
        Novell (now Micro Focus)
    - sigjuice 11y ago
      Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money? https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#DoesTheGPLAllow...
- NDizzle 11y ago
  Yeah I'm still reeling from reading this headline. My reaction is kind of like that scene in Super Troopers where the kid eats a bag full of mushrooms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb-cAJRZrlA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb-cAJRZrlA
tomschlick 11y ago
I would never use SQL server willingly but I really like the direction Microsoft is taking lately. They are a software company and restricting their software to PCs running Windows only doesn't make sense.
- Nullabillity 11y ago
  Have they released anything consumer-oriented on Linux yet?
  - qume 11y ago
    Kind of - Skype. Although it was released before MS purchased the company and since then it hasn't been maintained very well.
    - smacktoward 11y ago
      Skype on Linux feels a lot more like "legacy product MS inherited and then ignored" than "hot new product under active development."
    - npongratz 11y ago
      Maintained so poorly that we get this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11165568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11165568
    - rogerbinns 11y ago
      Skype on Linux seems to have different experiences for different people. For example it is rock solid for me, and always works well. I don't remember any crashes. But it also essentially never gets updated. I have colleagues on Windows, Mac and iOS where skype is getting updated, but it mostly seems to frustrate them by having an unpleasant user experience. Just today I was sharing my screen but they couldn't actually find it in the skype user interface! This is Microsoft's business to lose. But network effects mean you have to keep more of the audience satisfied because excluding people means they take themselves and those they interact with away to an alternative.
intermerda 11y ago
Can someone tell me why I would want to use SQL Server when there are so many robust and free RDBMS available on Linux?
- miguelrochefort 11y ago
  Enterprise stuff.
- sebastienros 11y ago
  Because features!
- karlshea 11y ago
  You might have an application that uses SQL Server-specific features, and if you have a separate database server cluster now you just have to pay for SQL Server licenses instead both it and Windows Server.
  - ericfrederich 11y ago
    Wonder if the pricing is such that SQL Server for Linux is the exact same price as SWL Server for Windows + Windows
    - ohitsdom 11y ago
      It'd be ridiculous to charge different amounts for a license based on the OS. Has that ever happened before?
      - makomk 11y ago
        I believe Apple like to buy up software and then charge more for it on non-Mac OSes.
      - hyperliner 11y ago
        It makes sense to charge different for different OS. Using absurd examples, it would not make sense to charge the same for a hypothetical version of SS for iOS than say another hypothetical version of SS specialized for CoreOS for instance.
hoodoof 11y ago
Is Microsoft deliberately trying to end Windows as a back end server? What is the underlying strategic outcome that makes this a good idea for Microsoft? BTW if you reply to this comment with a "Microsoft smackdown" comment then your comment is not very interesting. I'm interested to hear some thoughtful replies, not Linux fanboy pile-on and jeering.
- evm9 11y ago
  It's already over, they're just trying to reconcile.
  - newjersey 11y ago
    I'm especially excited for asp.net core on GNU/Linux. Maybe this is meant to fight off postgres and -- more importantly -- Oracle.
- robert_foss 11y ago
  Is there any point in keeping it alive? Is it actually used by a meaningful amount of people and businesses?
  - pfg 11y ago
    Yes, it's very common in enterprise scenarios and with regular SMBs.
  - tdicola 11y ago
    Absolutely, it still brings in billions in revenue each quarter.
  - FireBeyond 11y ago
    When was the last time you were in the office of a medium or large company that did NOT have an AD domain?
  - UK-AL 11y ago
    I'd probably guess its the most popular enterprise os excluding web hosting. On average I've seen better windows server setups then Linux setups simply because windows servers tend be used in 'enterprise' solutions.
gfodor 11y ago
Looks like they announced this 3 weeks early.
- pat_space 11y ago
  could you clarify? I don't get the reference.
  - deleted 11y ago
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  - rjdevereux 11y ago
    As in an April fools joke
  - pekim 11y ago
    It's a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day .
  - deleted 11y ago
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  - deleted 11y ago
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  - sciurus 11y ago
    Three weeks from now is April Fool's Day.
emn13 11y ago
A few years ago, I would have though that somebody posted this three weeks early.
jordz 11y ago
I was not expecting that at all.
merb 11y ago
haha i thought I'm reading that microsoft will bring MSSQL to Linux. But I'm just dreaming
- noja 11y ago
  Err didn't they announce exactly that?
epx 11y ago
Time to invite that girl again for a date (that one that said that hell would freeze before she would accept my invitation).
rb808 11y ago
I really love developing on sql server, but... From memory I remember when they "acquired" the source from Sybase and one of the selling points was that they could strip out all the multi-platform complexity from the source code. Being windows-only meant it was simpler, less complex code, faster and less buggy. It also confuses my view of what MS has been doing. Maybe Azure is more important than Windows now? Its going to be kinda weird to see SQL Server on Linux in Azure.
- nice__two 11y ago
  It's simple: we're living in a heterogeneous computing environment now and Microsoft cannot ignore that any longer now.
- swalsh 11y ago
  They took the former vp of Azure, and made him the CEO. Microsoft is very serious about Azure.
- justin66 11y ago
  I'm pretty sure someone born when they acquired the source to Sybase is now old enough to vote.
- eropple 11y ago
  > Being windows-only meant it was simpler, less complex code, faster and less buggy. So you don't think that, maybe-just-maybe, it's gotten a little easier to write cross-platform code in the last twenty-three years?
- jklowden 11y ago
  You're not thinking like a businessman. That purchase from Sybase 23 years ago and this announcement today have no technical justification. They're business decisions. The technical aspect is just a cost of doing business. Their bet evidently is they can make more money selling SQL Server without Windows than with it.
mrbluesman 11y ago
The question now is, will they offer up a free edition to compete with MySQL? And when will they open-source it? (I can't believe I'm actually saying that.)
- nickpeterson 11y ago
  There is a free (but not open source) edition and it's been available for some time. SQL Server Express. It has very severe limitations though, which make it difficult to recommend.
  - bragh 11y ago
    Depends on the use case. A local POS vendor is running most of their local databases in stores (1..10 registers) on the Express version. Not sure how often they archive data out of the main database, though.
- matthewarkin 11y ago
  There is SQL Server Express though it has a 10GB limit
talles 11y ago
> In-memory database support for every workload with performance increases up to 30-100x Can't wait to try this one, a Redis-like service with all the consistency of a mature SQL database (in theory at least). Don't get me wrong, I've being deploying Redis in production and I'm love with it, but it's nice to have an alternative with referential integrity not to mention the "isomorphic" effect (you'll be able to switch from non-volatile to volatile persistence without the wizardry required by the typical in-memory databases).
EvanAnderson 11y ago
Maybe my secret hope of Exchange on Linux isn't completely insane after all...
- deleted 11y ago
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- sauere 11y ago
  Don't see that one happening. Exchange is too tightly coupled with Active Directory and IIS.
  - EvanAnderson 11y ago
    I don't think Exchange uses any interface other than LDAP to hit Active Directory, so I'd think there's at least a fighting chance that the AD requirement could be satisfied by other LDAP servers. I can't speak to the IIS integration anymore-- I quit following that at a low level back in the Exchange '03 timeframe. I would suspect there's a clear line between IIS and Exchange, however, that could be used to facilitate an adapter layer for a flexible HTTP(S) server like nginx. The SMTP, POP, and IMAP services, though, would probably involve a lot of re-implementation.
    - lukeh 11y ago
      Last time I checked it also uses a lot of RPC protocols, e.g. NSPI.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  IIRC Exchange depends on Active Directory. I would've thought porting AD to Linux would be a huge undertaking, but then again I would've thought the same about MSSQL, so like you say maybe it's not so insane.
- bsharitt 11y ago
  I wouldn't hold my breath. I'm guessing this is more tied to the .Net moves to Linux and getting their full web stack on Linux. Though if their long term strategy is to give up Windows Server, then everything may come to Linux.
NicoJuicy 11y ago
I wonder if i can run EF on Windows with a SQL Server backend now? What would be the memory usage difference?
- jnevill 11y ago
  Doesn't EF just use an ODBC connection? I can't imagine that the OS upon which the Server is running would have any effect on something as high up the stack as ODBC/OLEDB.
  - snuxoll 11y ago
    ADO.NET, not ODBC.
netcraft 11y ago
this will make it much more available to containerized stacks for sure.
hoodoof 11y ago
Errr, how exactly does this work? What's the underlying technology that makes it possible?
- jnevill 11y ago
  I'd like to know more about this too. Data storage and retrieval is such an important and integral part of an RDBMS and the switch to Linux suggests that they've had to tear up a lot of their low-level logic. How well they've done optimizing storage for EXT3/EXT4 seems to be pretty important. It would be interesting to see what's changed and how they managed this.
  - oblio 11y ago
    If past Microsoft is any reference, most of the software is cross platform. It is designed from the start to be cross platform. It's just that they never bothered to actually port it to anything other than Windows. Of course, bits and pieces might be tied to a platform and the dependency chain might drag other parts down, but overall Windows, Office, etc. generally have some sort of abstraction at the lower level that could theoretically allow porting to any platform.
    - jnevill 11y ago
      That's my concern though. When you look at other enterprise-sized RDBMS you find tight integration at the "machine" level. Oracle's storage, for instance, uses "Blocks" which are sized based on the block size of the disk they are writing to. This tight integration at such a low level is part of what makes these RDBMS's fast. I would imagine that instead of running on an abstract layer that can be commonly built across many OS's that an RDBMS like Sql Server would be more tightly integrated with the machine they are running on in order to maximize performance and disk space. If so, I would really love to dig through what that means for SQL server.
      - telotortium 11y ago
        Might that not imply that the implementation is relatively little tied to a particular OS? Taking your example, as long as there's a way to get the block size for a disk, there's not much more OS-specific code to deal with -- in particular, adapting your code to the file system doesn't need to be done since the DB will essentially create its own anyway. Similarly, only a few threading primitives need to be used -- the DB isn't going to tie itself heavily to the vagaries of the async IO implementation, which does tend to differ heavily and pervasively between platforms.
gtrubetskoy 11y ago
Even as recently as a year ago this would pass as a great April Fools joke. Boy how have the times changed.
desireco42 11y ago
Microsoft, you devil! That is awesome news. It will definitely push others to up their db game. One thing is DB engine, other is a suite of tools that goes along with it.
Symbiote 11y ago
For anyone unaware, SQL Server is a 'fork' of Sybase after an agreement between Sybase and Microsoft ended in 1993. At that point, "Sybase SQL Server version 4.2 and Microsoft SQL Server are identical." Sybase runs happily on Unix, Linux or Windows. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybase
- sixdimensional 11y ago
  ...and Sybase, which is a descendant of Ingres that also runs happily on Unix, Linux or Windows. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingres_(database) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingres_(database)
- dsp1234 11y ago
  At that point, "Sybase SQL Server version 4.2 and Microsoft SQL Server are identical." Well, that's 23 years ago... But even at mssql V7[0], most of the systems had internal rewrites that made them different than Sybase. [0] - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/euanga/2006/01/19/sql-mythbusters-sql-server-is-really-a-sybase-product-not-a-microsoft-one/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/euanga/2006/01/19/sql-mythb...
- protomyth 11y ago
  Sybase has not kept their end up to what Microsoft has been pushing in SQL Server. Transact-SQL is nicer on SQL Server and the last time I used Sybase the query planner was problematic to the point of needed to force loads of indexes.
  - yread 11y ago
    I second that, we had to run a medium sized application on FusionIO cards because Sybase was just terrible at query optimization
    - protomyth 11y ago
      We did a lot of monitoring and index forcing. We queried the system tables and go the current query plan for the statements running. We were already on one of the biggest boxes HP built (Superdome) with some fun fast storage for the db.
PedroBatista 11y ago
For years I told my boss: "I'd love to use SQL Server like you suggested, but it doesn't run on Linux". Now I'm finished.
sixdimensional 11y ago
I for one am excited to hear about this move and was wondering if it would ever happen. This will help keep SQL Server alive and growing (I think) and who knows, maybe bits and pieces will even become open source some day (that's optimistic perhaps). I am an equal opportunity consumer of database technology - something we all should be (e.g. use the right tool for the job when appropriate). I have used MANY different databases, open source and commercial, and there are better ones and worse ones across the spectrum. I think it is naive to criticize this move in any way - it is giving more choice so should be supported. That said, SQL Server has a low barrier to entry, a very good implementation of the SQL language, an advanced optimizer, strong storage engine, management tools and a lot of nice BI features. Although you don't hear about it much, SQL Server also has Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) which is their MPP database - ironically which used to be built using Ingres and Java of all things. In my experience, SQL Server <-> PostgreSQL is the closest commercial to open source comparison (core database engine-wise) I can think of. This makes sense when you consider - both of them started as Ingres! Of course, Postgres and SQL Server have totally different user experiences (database management, tooling, etc.) and many different features.
- hamitron 11y ago
  I too am excited, as I was faced with the challenge of building a rails app with a SQL server database backend. Sure there is a solid adapter, but it wasn't perfect, and we couldn't effectively run tests on it.
  - bdcravens 11y ago
    It won't be generally available until mid-2017. I've built a Rails app atop a large legacy SQL Server, and I really haven't run into anything that wouldn't run. (aside from `rails db`)
- kbenson 11y ago
  Coming from mostly a Linux/MySQL background, I've had reason to use MSSQL for the last few years. It's really solid, and seems to optimize queries well, which is good, because there's a few things that I still find really annoying, such as no GROUP_CONCAT. There is a more general method to do the same thing, but wow is that method cumbersome in comparison (although undoubtedly more powerful).
DKnoll 11y ago
They mentioned a preview available today, but I'm not seeing it on the Partner or MSDN portals. Anybody got a link?
- jnevill 11y ago
  At the end of the article (although it's not stated, and the link was down about when this was posted): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/sql-server-on-linux.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/sql-server-on-l...
  - DKnoll 11y ago
    Thanks for the assist, looking forward to testing this out.
callesgg 11y ago
very interesting move strategically. would I use it for my own project's? no. would I use it for some random software that requires mssql? yes.
jedberg 11y ago
Just the other day I was discussing with some folks that Microsoft has made an amazing effort of the last two years to win back the hearts and minds of developers. This is another great step in that direction.
fideloper 11y ago
I work on a software product that supports MySQL, PgSQL and SqlServer (if they run it on Windows, since we only support the official Windows PHP drivers). SqlServer has always been the best performing and least troublesome database in terms of weird edge cases, backup, restoration, and (especially!) performing expensive SELECTS on databases that have grown into the 100's of Gigabytes in size. Based on my experience, for all the (often deserved) hate on M$, SqlServer is really a shining star. That being said, I am a little scared to support SqlServer on Linux, as I imagine it will have to be different in quite some potentially fundamental ways to work on Linux - I'd love to hear if anyone has opinions on that aspect.
- nickpeterson 11y ago
  Keep in mind that SQL Server basically runs on top of it's own conception of an operation system even when installed on Windows. It's called SQLOS and the work done on that was probably what largely enabled this to happen because there was already an existing layer of abstraction in place for development to use. That said, I think that this will probably come with a large amount of caveats, for instance, I wouldn't be surprised if when it launches it's just the core SQL engine and not the extra pieces (SSIS,SSAS,SSRS,MDS, et cetera).
  - walkingolof 11y ago
    Makes sens since SQL Server granpa is "Sybase for OS/2". There are probably very few lines of code left from those days (-94:ish), but the way of thinking is probably still there and what enabled this.
    - cokernel_hacker 11y ago
      SQLOS is a relatively new component, it was introduced for SQL Server 2005. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/slavao/archive/2005/02/05/367816.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/slavao/archive/2005/02/05/367816.asp...
  - copperx 11y ago
    > Keep in mind that SQL Server basically runs on top of it's own conception of an operation system even when installed on Windows. What is the reason for this?
merpnderp 11y ago
I bet a lot of Microsoft's push to Linux is that something like 98% of the internet runs on non-windows OS's.
aikah 11y ago
Ok, good. Now how much a SQL Server on Linux license is going to cost ? Does it mean businesses using Linux will now be subject to Microsoft license audits ?
- yardie 11y ago
  Oracle runs on Linux. Oracle is a member of BSA. If you use oracle on Linux you are still subject to audits. Why would this be any different for Microsoft.
cturner 11y ago
How long until Microsoft put out their own BSD distribution?
- justin66 11y ago
  How long until the memory of the last antitrust action by a major government fades?
  - bdcravens 11y ago
    Never. Microsoft could open source Windows and on HN and elsewhere you'll hear the same tired memes.
- mixedCase 11y ago
  They have their own Microsoft Linux, but it's for Azure internal use only.
  - cturner 11y ago
    Thanks, I'd missed this. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/18/microsoft_has_developed_its_own_linux_repeat_microsoft_has_developed_its_own_linux/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/18/microsoft_has_develo...
- rmind 11y ago
  Well, back in 1980s, Microsoft had its own UNIX system called Xenix. It was not BSD, but it incorporated some programs from it.
oblio 11y ago
Now if they port Microsoft Office, we'll finally be able to say: "hell hath frozen over".
- txdv 11y ago
  not gonna happen, office is pure client technology
  - oblio 11y ago
    I'd say that it is unlikely, but I wouldn't call it impossible. Most of the recent moves out of Microsoft seem to point at a large strategic shift, away from Windows. In the past the Windows division had an iron grip on Microsoft, it seems to be loosening (see .Net port, VSCode, etc.).
- nickpeterson 11y ago
  Well, it wouldn't surprise me, because look at the work they're doing to support Android.
  - discordance 11y ago
    Just because it's possible doesn't mean it will happen. Office is on Android because it has a huge market share. Linux desktop still is very low market share so an Office client doesn't make sense there, whereas Linux server is high market share so SQL Server does make sense.
aninteger 11y ago
Does anyone know if this potentially includes a replacement for FreeTDS. A replacement would mean open source in this context.
- bureado 11y ago
  Scroll down on this page for more information on client drivers: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/sql-server-on-linux.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/sql-server-on-l...
  - aninteger 11y ago
    Sadly not open source and no ability to use it with CentOS 6.
    - teh_klev 11y ago
      Support for RedHat 5, 6 and 7 so it'll work on CentOS 6 which is re-packaged, de-branded RHEL: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36437 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=364... Can't really help you with the open source side of things.
  - smartbit 11y ago
    De SQL Server Native Client on Windows supports many features [1], most of which are not supported with aforementioned non-windows SQL clients. JDBC & Linux ODBC support a few High Availability features (with try/catch). JSON, Ruby and Python seemingly support only basic connections. What are the effects of this? Does anyone have experience migrating SQL Server clients away from Windows? Do Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL or others have database-clients with more rich feature sets? Or are these Native Client features barely used and not missed on non-Windows clients? [1] https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms131456.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms131456.aspx
bifrost 11y ago
I can't wait to try this in the FreeBSD Linuxulator!
- tachion 11y ago
  We havent seen the sources yet but with some luck we will be able to get it in ports without the need for linux kernel emulation ;)
rocky1138 11y ago
It's taken a ton of years, but here we are: "If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won." -Linus Torvalds
- serge2k 11y ago
  Everyone already knew linux for servers is winning.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 11y ago
    And since running those Linux servers in Azure results in revenue flowing to Microsoft by the hour, it seems that MS also winning here. The cloud market share of Azure vs. AWS is however a different dogfight.
  - NeutronBoy 11y ago
    Outside of Silicon Valley, it's not so cut and dry.
    - kristopolous 11y ago
      Could you take a more nuanced and defined stance? What sectors, markets, or users are you referring to?
      - ktRolster 11y ago
        The Seattle market tends to use Microsoft a lot.
      - UK-AL 11y ago
        Virtually any major corporation will have major installations of AD, File Servers, Print Servers, etc using MS infrastructure.
      - stunthamsterio 11y ago
        I'll chime in; for me this is a god send. I currently work with a client who specialises in working with automotive companies (Ford, Renault, Peugeot etc), and it turns out that automotive companies love MS SQL. The stack I'm working with is a Java/Linux stack with a Windows/MSSQL backend, simply because it didn't scare the customer as much as Linux/Java Linux/Postgres. It looks like as an industry they are starting to loosen up a little now, but those MS SQL databases are going to be around for a while, and it'll be nice if I can at least standardise onto a single set of skills and install patterns for the platform OS.
icewater0 11y ago
Oooh, I can't wait to ignore Microsoft products on Linux as well! PostgreSQL for me thanks.
shiftoutbox 11y ago
Checks calendar , hurmm it's not April 1st ... ? Wait I remember sun one asp server . Please tell me this isn't sql server written in c# using mono !
dhd415 11y ago
I'm very interested to hear some of the details about how the storage engine was ported to Linux. One of the advantages of SQL Server was how well it exploited the Windows overlapped I/O model for disk access. When running large selects, backups, or restores, SQL Server always uses the full bandwidth of my disk subsystem. When I built a prototype of my application on PostgreSQL (which I would much rather run for its free licenses and more mature indexing), I had to tweak all kinds of things to get it to use the full bandwidth of my disk system and I was not always successful.
- deleted 11y ago
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- _wmd 11y ago
  It's not difficult to mimic overlapped IO using a thread pool, and not that much less efficient either, assuming the pending request count is quite low
- ajross 11y ago
  The space of applications for which storage bandwidth is a limit on performance but where the overall scale is appropriate for a SQL RDBMS is shrinking every year. Is this even a meaningful niche? Basically, http://yourdatafitsinram.com/ http://yourdatafitsinram.com/
davidw 11y ago
I remember when Oracle became available for Linux - that was the beginning of a new era in terms of the legitimacy it conferred on Linux. (Yes, I know, Oracle the company sucks, but that's tangential to this particular discussion). I wonder if this is the beginning of a similar change in the industry.
blueside 11y ago
of course, the major downside to this is that linux admins will now have the possibility that they have to work with sql server
ChicagoDave 11y ago
Gob-smacked.
cmdrfred 11y ago
I've always had this question and this looks like my chance to ask it. If you are developing new software today why on earth would you use SQL server? Is the price tag justified over the many free and open source alternatives?
trollied 11y ago
May not have been as hard to port as you all think. SQL Server was a port of Sybase, which was *NIX based anyway
- bdcravens 11y ago
  Pretty sure the code has changed enough in 23 years that this wasn't relevant.
colemannerd 11y ago
I am incredibly excited. This is the first step towards a docker version of SQL Server which for our company would enable us so many options to improve developers lives. Even if we stay with Windows for production SQL deployments, this will make development awesome.
- bboreham 11y ago
  Wouldn't Docker for Windows (in preview for many months now) count as the first step?
- windowsworkstoo 11y ago
  What do you expect Docker to do for you (in development) that you can't already do with SSDT and LocalDB?
- luisdbosquez 11y ago
  In the sign up page (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/sql-server-on-linux.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/sql-server-on-l...) you'll find this quote: "Please note that at this time, SQL Server on Linux is available on Ubuntu or as Docker image." :)
krmmalik 11y ago
This is huge and I wonder if this now means that they'll also bring other products to Linux such as Microsoft Power BI. It would definitely make sense in light of this announcement.
krylon 11y ago
Having worked as a Windows admin for the the past three years, the one piece of Microsoft technology that never gave me the least bit of trouble is SQL Server. It's expensive (compared to the € 0,- price tag of PostgreSQL), but otherwise I like it very much. It will be interesting to see SQL Server on Linux.
blinkingled 11y ago
From http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-is-porting-sql-server-to-linux/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-is-porting-sql-server... - "The spokesperson also acknowledged that Microsoft won't be bringing all of the same capabilities in SQL Server 2016 to Linux; it will be just the "core relational database capabilities." As somewhat expected this will be a limited release catering mostly to cloud customers (Azure in particular) - who knows down the road they will port all features to Linux including the UI management tools but I would be surprised if they don't keep the niche features Windows-only. Welcome announcement anyway - having a supported mainstream DB other than Oracle on Linux is a good thing.
- kbenson 11y ago
  > I would be surprised if they don't keep the niche features Windows-only. For some definition of niche, which in this case may very well include "enterprise class features" such as replication... This is a way for MS to increase exposure and draw people into their ecosystem (at least for a part of their infrastructure) in an increasingly OS agnostic world. I don't think it makes sense for them to cannibalize their current revenue sources to do so, and a part of that is requiring expensive Windows Server licenses for high-end MSSQL features.
  - blinkingled 11y ago
    Yeah, replication, encryption, memory optimized tables, search etc. come to mind.
- lmm 11y ago
  To my mind MySQL and PostgreSQL are both more mainstream than either Oracle or MSSQL, and it's possible to buy a support contract for either?
  - blinkingled 11y ago
    Mainstream yes and you can buy support for them but they are not supported by majority of the Enterprise 3rd party/COTS software. Most enterprise products you can license only work with Oracle on Linux.
qaq 11y ago
One of the few usable products MS has (haven't used it since SQL Server 2000 though).
rbanffy 11y ago
The three best Microsoft products are their natural keyboard, the mice and SQL Server. Now all of them work with my OS.
- simoncion 11y ago
  > The three best Microsoft products are their natural keyboard... The Natural Keyboards [0] have been getting less and less durable as the years go by. My first one lasted for ~five years. My second, two or three. My third is less than a year old and already suffering from intermittent failure to register keypresses, as well as surprisingly rapid breakdown of the faux leather material that covers the bottom portion of the keyboard. (The faux leather breakdown is a first for me... all the other keyboards suffered mechanical failure long before I saw any sort of wear on the bottom portion material.) [0] Specifically, the MSFT Natural Ergonomic Keyboard X000 models that have the stupid, useless zoom slider.
  - rbanffy 11y ago
    I said they are the best, not that they are still very good ;-) But I agree with you. My next one will be a kinesis.
    - simoncion 11y ago
      > ...they are the best, not that they are still very good... And I agree with you on both counts. :D Are you thinking about one of the models with the bowl curves for the keys? If you are, have you typed on one? If you did, what did you think of it?
      - rbanffy 11y ago
        I did, and it's wonderful. It's tough to adjust back to a laptop keyboard, however. And switching regularly may create new tissue in your cerebellum.
- sqldba 11y ago
  I really want the wireless natural keyboard with a built in number pad. I know it's seperate but it's not the same. But the baseball mouse really hurts my hand; and I tried using it for a month before giving up.
ape4 11y ago
Seems quite insular to call it just "SQL Server". We already have Postgres SQL Server, MySql SQL Server, etc. They should call it "Microsoft SQL Server".
- Zr40 11y ago
  No, it's just PostgreSQL and MySQL. Neither has "Server" in its name.
- kyberias 11y ago
  They do but they also seem to own the trademark to "SQL Server": https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/trademarks/en-us.aspx#70cf4cc4-bd8e-48a5-90e0-b4e0fe464527 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/t...
shirro 11y ago
I have a lot of negative feelings about Microsoft because of the historical baggage but they have some good products and technologies. I am also fairly negative on Oracle but when they released their database on Linux it was important for me at the time as it gave a boost to Linux server work (now with added DBA). There is a lot of software that targets a limited subset of databases due to SQL incompatibilities/features and sometimes that is a subset of one. Getting some of those backends on Linux would be nice for people who have concentrated on unix/linux skills to the detriment of their Windows knowledge. This eats Windows OS sales to some extent but I am sure they can make it up with database licenses and market share if they take the product seriously.
kourosh4000 11y ago
Hey guys, I'm trying to learn about this stuff, would anybody pls help me out!?
kourosh4000 11y ago
Hey there! I'm trying to learn about this stuff , would anyone pls help me out how to be a hacker?
- algorithmsRcool 11y ago
  If you mean hacker in the sense that you want to learn about breaking into computers, then you've come to the wrong place. Hacker news is a startup/technology oriented news aggregator with a comments section. Not a den of criminals. (depending on your views about capitalism i suppose)
alexc05 11y ago
This is another awesome piece of news! If you're interested in using docker+.NetCore+EF a "proper" database was the only piece missing.
- broodbucket 11y ago
  What's EF in this context?
  - recursive 11y ago
    Entity Framework
  - wmeddie 11y ago
    Entity Framework. Microsoft's high-level ORM for .Net.
- bigdubs 11y ago
  postgres is still a "proper" database.
  - alexc05 11y ago
    Sorry, you're 100% right and I agree with you on that. however http://www.npgsql.org/ http://www.npgsql.org/ is not yet a "first class" driver. Notice the tags on there, "Stable" release is inaccessible and unstable has warnings (also it is labelled as unstable) I would be less likely to feel secure in trusting the unstable release of a third party driver even though I know that the .NET team mentioned NPG during the last community standup. My understanding was that they said members of the Entity Framework team are working with the team at NPG. I do think that it will be usable very soon, but the SQLServer drivers are working now.
    - bigdubs 11y ago
      I have some experience experimenting with NPGSQL and it was definitely not production ready; huge performance problems and general issues abound. I wish someone would step up and write a better .net postgres driver.
JimmaDaRustla 11y ago
Wow. Just two days ago we were wishing SQL was available in Linux so we could move away from Oracle.
jamespitts 11y ago
Very happy to see this. MS is extending the olive branch in so many ways, and we in the open source community can learn to forgive. Still, it will be hard to get over the mutual hostility from decades past. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/trudy-bourgeois/what-george-wallace-taugh_b_6647468.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/trudy-bourgeois/what-george-wa...
- jamespitts 11y ago
  So what's up? Why do you disagree?
arenaninja 11y ago
I just started a job where mssql is used extensively. They're trying to get a PHP 7 application off the ground and the lack of a mssql driver (non-PDO) for PHP 7 is a big pain point. As of Jan 2016, they had released a beta release and were taking a poll on what platform they should support next (I'm not kidding, the entire history is here: https://github.com/Azure/msphpsql/issues/58 https://github.com/Azure/msphpsql/issues/58). Unfortunately it seems support is secondary in this case to Microsoft, as they are unable or unwilling to allocate the necessary resources
- 1812Overture 11y ago
  Why are they avoiding PDO? Seems like that's what people should be moving towards in terms of flexibility and security.
  - e12e 11y ago
    That struck me as odd too (I'm not really up to date on php7, and haven't considered php on windows in at least a decade). But perhaps it's because the PDO-driver is built on the old TSQL-interface, and MS own drivers haven't been ported to php7 yet (not with a stable release, anyway) ? http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pdo-dblib.php http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pdo-dblib.php https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/ff657782.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/ff657782.aspx https://github.com/Azure/msphpsql/tree/PHP-7.0 https://github.com/Azure/msphpsql/tree/PHP-7.0
  - arenaninja 11y ago
    I've used and liked PDO myself in the past. The issue is that even though the application would pretty much simply run on PHP7 (since it runs on 5.6 already) if MS had a compatible driver instead of contemplating a re-write
blakecaldwell 11y ago
This would never happen if Steve Ballmer was still alive.
- ryao 11y ago
  He is not dead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer
  - blakecaldwell 11y ago
    Was joking :)
jasonjei 11y ago
I wonder if the UI management tools will be web-based like GCloud/AWS/Azure, or if they will be OS-specific. Still, it's very impressive that Microsoft is moving outside its own OS.
- reitoei 11y ago
  They'd have to be web-based, surely.
stevehiehn 11y ago
The reason this has my attention is because 'R' is being integrated into the engine.
ninjakeyboard 11y ago
I don't really know why I would choose to use sql server if I wasn't already locked in to MS as a vendor. Is the idea that it gives people the ability to move away from MS if they already have vendor lock in? Or is it to hopefully compete against eg Oracle.
anonbanker 11y ago
Someone page Vinod Valloppillil[0] for a quote on this one. Anyone know if he's still in the industry? 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents
tn13 11y ago
I find this really weird for the following reason. Only cost conscious developers care about running db server on the same machine as application server to keep costs low. Such people wont buy SQL Server at all for the cost related reasons. Non cost conscious developers can always run SQL Server on a separate Windows machine while keeping their application servers on Linux. Except Microsoft intends to make SQL Server free and make it replace Mysql among small developers and later help them buy SQL Server instances in cloud and make money.
ryanmarsh 11y ago
I've always enjoyed using SQL Server and I'm really happy about how it's grown over the years in features and performance. I really never thought this day would come.
jhwhite 11y ago
Is SQL Server Management Studio available on Linux? Is there anything like it on Linux?
l3m0ndr0p 11y ago
OMG - They'll probably cripple the implementation of this. I wouldn't trust MS on this. It sounds nice, but I wouldn't set this up if it meant we could have world peace... MS SQL relies heavily on Windows OS API. How are they going to pull this off? With some kind of VM layer running under linux with a stripped down Window OS which will run MS SQL? MS Should announce that they are going to fork a version of Linux with their brand MS-Linux. Hell - If they port every piece of software over to Linux, they would rule the world & back-end server market. Any way. Good luck!
nodesocket 11y ago
MSSQL actually is really mature and performant (on par with Oracle) and I'm interested to see some benchmarks vs MySQL and PostGRES. I think it could become the replacement for SQL enterprise, even over the widely loved PostGRES.
- jklowden 11y ago
  Don't hold your breath. The EULA for SQL Server prohibits publishing benchmark results. It's not completely self-serving. Back when magazines were made of paper, "DBMS Faceoff!" articles sold a lot of copy, and generated more heat than light. A DBMS is a complex beast, enough so that it's impossible to say if X is faster than Y for all workloads.
alexc05 11y ago
I wonder if SSMS tools are going to go crossplat like VSCODE? How great would it be to have first-class sql-server-management-studio on your Mac/Linux desktop? I wonder if SqlExpress is going to be available on Linux too?
ryao 11y ago
Here is the obligatory admiral ackbar link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F4qzPbcFiA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F4qzPbcFiA With that out of the way, I wonder if they will port their other software like Mcrosoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Office, various games, etcetera.
bhaavan 11y ago
`Please join me Satya Nadella, Joseph Sirosh and Judson Althoff at our Data Driven ..... Thanks, Scott ` This is why there is a comma in grammar. `me Satya Nadella, X and Y` is different from `me, Satya Nadella, X and Y`
rawells14 11y ago
This is absolutely amazing
Themistocles 11y ago
..........................
tasnimreza 11y ago
Awesome :) Now a days Microsoft changed a lot, welcome to the new world (Linux). The raise of NoSql, how MS SQL survived ! amazing.
sbose78 11y ago
This is huge, competition for Oracle increases. :)
z3t4 11y ago
Using SQL Server on Linux would be like swearing in church silly smile
intrasight 11y ago
This could reduce the cost of using SQL Server on AWS if Amazon supports this flavor.
binoyxj 11y ago
Why Microsoft needs SQL Server on Linux http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-microsoft-needs-sql-server-on-linux/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-microsoft-needs-sql-server-...
rajeevk 11y ago
With this trend, I will not be surprised if Microsoft releases its own Linux distro which will be optimized for MS software (e.g. sql server)
Corrado 11y ago
The first thing that comes to mind with this announcement is about SQLServer drivers for non-Windows platforms. Years ago, it was all but impossible to talk to "DataCenter" SQLServer from anything but Windows. Apparently, the connection URI was a configuration endpoint and the driver was responsible for switching between active masters. This meant that a simple ODBC driver wouldn't work as there was no real endpoint to connect to. A real Linux driver would be great; an open source one would be outstanding! NOTE: This type of thing is what made me hate Microsoft for so long, and even today I find it difficult to recommend them as a solution provider for anything, on any platform. So, while I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, I'll continue working to move everything I can, including databases, to another platform.
Lennu 11y ago
Just have to say, it is great to see Microsoft turning again into a software company! Even after all the hate, they do great products and good stable software. A great example of a successful software company.
lxsameer 11y ago
hehe, No thank you
anacleto 11y ago
Good move. It's just late.
int0x80 11y ago
if you can't fight them, join them!
listentojohan 11y ago
Never really found a GUI I liked as much as MSSQL (not that you always need it, but it's nice!) - though I'm really in love with postgres - I've sometimes found myself just thinking "why doesn't everyone do it like this".
betimsl 11y ago
Can't wait to see benchmarks of this on same config hardware :D
gargravarr 11y ago
I never thought I'd see this happen, but it turns out to be quite a pleasant surprise. I know it's already possible to run ASP.Net on Linux via Apache, so this is the next logical step. I'm quite impressed by the possibility of running SQL Server on Linux; as a T-SQL developer immediately out of university, I have come to appreciate its speed and efficiency. It's not perfect and it does have its annoying quirks, but in general it's quite a sturdy RDBMS. MySQL has demonstrated some much more WTF-y quirks (try inserting a varchar into an int column!) and there are places I prefer T-SQL syntax (e.g. temp tables). Management tools don't really factor into it, you can get third-party tools that support intellisense etc. on different RDBMSs. In short, I would have few reservations about using SQL Server for my own projects (since I run exclusively Linux at home). Licensing is another story though; I dread to think how much it'll cost, but this is a pretty amazing step in the right direction, adding to a recent history of such steps, for Microsoft.
philjackson 11y ago
Every time there's an announcement like this, I like to remember back to the campaign of FUD that MS peddled against Linux. I think Ballmer once called the OS a "cancer".
known 11y ago
Isn't it too little and too late?
markusbrutus 11y ago
It's clear that Nadella is trying to pull some kind of embrace-extend-extinguish strategy. I would consider part of the same strategy the offering of TypeScript which could be the mother of all lock-in-embrace-extend-extinguish plays if Microsoft establishes a beachhead on the browser and starts 'extending' TypeScript / JavaScript (to 'enhance user experience' of course). Fortunately, the TypeScript (JavaScript for people who don't like JavaScript) abomination is dying alongside AngularJS since it became apparent how very much Microsoft-y the whole thing has become.
dschiptsov 11y ago
It would be more beneficial for whole community to contribute to Postgres. We already have fairly superior commercial solution, like Informix Dynamic Server family, which is superior in everything, except compatibility with MS, that lost "competition" (to meme-based popularity) to crap like MySQL or bloatware like Oracle. This is, again, good publicity and excellent PR action, but my bet is that performance and especially stability will be poor, like it is with .Net port or Skype port. To bring a server to the market requires expertise with target platform which very few UNIX shops has. Open sourcing IDS, which has remarkable technology inside, which is partially related to Postgres, would be a much better move.)
jroseattle 11y ago
I don't get many predictions right, but 3 years ago I stated to a group of colleagues: "By 2019, Microsoft will be the largest open-source software company on the planet." Yes, I deserved the laughs I received. Not sure about the accuracy of my prediction, but I'll bet I'm closer to right than wrong by that time.
jenkstom 11y ago
I've used a lot of databases over the past 25 years. From DBase flat files to the Borland Database Engine to MSSQL (pre and post 2K), Interbase / Firebird, DB2, PostgreSQL, MySql/MariaDb, Sqlite and more. I haven't used MSSQL in a few years and had to dive back into it for an integration project. Oh my, I forgot how user unfriendly it is. I can't call a stored procedure from a select query? Ok, write a user-defined wrapper function. Oh wait, I can't call a stored procedure from there either. Now I know why the consultants use a VBA script in Excel to load data... it's actually the easiest way, ridiculously convoluted as it is, if your logic is implemented as stored procedures. I remember the first time I wrote a stored procedure in PostgreSQL. It was the point at which I decided I would never willingly choose MSSQL for a project again. If you write a lot of stored procedures / TSQL in MS SQL Server, do yourself a favor and check out how it is done in PostgreSQL. It's an order of magnitude simpler and saner.
ianamartin 11y ago
This is really exciting. I choose Postgres for side projects and new consulting work. But there are often times when you just don't have a choice. Sometimes it's SQL Server or bust, and you have to work with it. Hell, sometimes, it's MySQL, and you don't have a choice. I don't hate it at all. I wish it had more of the PL parts of PL/SQL because that would make my life sometimes easier. I had to implement some very crazy/stupid statistical procedures with SQL Server. It kind of sucked in ways that would have been a lot better in Postgres. Lots and lots of fun with dynamic SQL where you're stuffing SQL into variables and interpolating column names from variables into those strings. It was awful. But it worked. If SQL Server would bring in even some of the PL features of Postgres or Oracle, I would use in a heartbeat. The tooling that MS provides for SQL Server is second to none. I love me some open source, but the tooling we have available for Postgres and MySQL is just absolute crap compared to SSMS.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
habanany 11y ago
🆒🆓🆕🆗🆙️

1344 points by bjg 11y ago

I'm genuinely worried now. I'll have to thumb through the Book of Revelation again, but I'm pretty sure MSSQL on Linux and Donald Trump possibly becoming the next President are two of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

yeukhon 11y ago
Waking up in the morning looking my shitty code is Apocalypse.
sdegutis 11y ago
Until Microsoft changes its licensing model so that it's not ridiculously expensive, I'll still keep preferring free software over their stuff. But that's something they'll never do.
- nobleach 11y ago
  I'm all for paying for great software (whether it's open source or not) I prefer open source however. I love how fast development is moving on Postgres lately.
- AdeptusAquinas 11y ago
  Could have said the same thing about releasing on Linux as well :D
- Moto7451 11y ago
  It's all about finding the right tool for the job. For most, this audience especially, open source relational databases are the way to go. For a lot of big business and government jobs, Oracle and Microsoft are the way to go and having your preferred ops environment makes a big difference. At my first job we had to maintain an Oracle DB connection to pull data directly from the City of Los Angeles. At the end of the day we were out of business without that so we didn't really debate the merits of using it. That job happened to be a Windows shop anyway (most of the company were CAD artists using Architecture software) so it didn't phase the IT ops team. On the other hand, at my current job I've been in charge of some search tech that's Windows only and being the lone Windows user has been a bit painful. We liked the results it gave us but recently developed our own algorithms on top of ElasticSearch so we didn't have to deal with Windows anymore. The Dev work to switch was more than the cost saved on the license for the old software, so this wasn't a case of open source saving is money on the solution implementation. We really just didn't want to focus on Windows Dev ops. I think this is the concern the SQL Server team had and why they're supporting Linux, especially in Microsoft's increasingly Azure focused world.
  - creshal 11y ago
    Paying for a tool that does the job is one thing. But SQL Server's licensing scheme is so fucked up that I see companies building custom servers for the sole purpose of gaming it (extremely low core count and high clock rates). That shouldn't be the goal of software licensing
    - Moto7451 11y ago
      I don't think that's really gaming the license. If a fast two core system fits your needs then you only need the two core license. MS is happy to sell those to you all day long. If you have a serious load and SQL Server is key to your business you're likely to have better things to do than try to micromanage your server architecture to save a few dollars. If you're in a position where SQL Server, Oracle, or any other specialized commercial DB is a major cost and you're not seeing a positive ROI, messing with core counts v.s. clock speed is probably a poorer use of time than switching to Postgres or MySQL.
- justin66 11y ago
  In this niche Oracle occupies the "ridiculously expensive" position.
  - cwyers 11y ago
    And somehow simultaneously occupies the "I wouldn't use it if it was free" position.
    - justin66 11y ago
      I wonder if you believe people send Larry Ellison money because of his likeability.
      - cwyers 11y ago
        No, it's because the people who pay for it aren't the people who have to use it.
        other_herbert 11y ago
        I used oracle a lot a few years ago... When I was getting used to it I would compare it to a neighbor that is usually really helpful, but on occasion when you asked to borrow something would hit you with a bat first...
        peteretep 11y ago
        Enterprise software shares this in common with Duplo. The purchaser is often more excited than the user.
- sqldba 11y ago
  Good plan. Luckily MOST software, even advanced stuff, can run easily on free database engines. They really are CRUD for the most part. My income depends on SS but it saddens me when I think of how much is spent on it by applications which could so easily run on something that is free.
atomic77 11y ago
With the unseasonable March temperatures, I actually thought April fools day had crept up on me...
- smegel 11y ago
  Are you in Australia or it like this the world over?
  - merpnderp 11y ago
    It is the world over: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/enso.shtml http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/enso...
  - atomic77 11y ago
    Seems like March has been quite warm in the eastern half of North America and Europe - not sure about other places.
- abrookewood 11y ago
  Same ... I genuinely looked at the calendar, while thinking to myself "It's still March isn't it??"
darkr 11y ago
Though this news is pretty shocking, I don't think that the horsemen are nigh until MS releases SQL server under GPL. If that happens then I'm packing up and heading for the hills, this world is done for.
- hyperliner 11y ago
  It will never happen. Somebody needs to pay those engineers who build SQL Server. Maybe when relational databases are a commodity and everything is NoSQL?
  - darkr 11y ago
    Plenty of successful businesses are built around providing support, services or premium features for an otherwise open-source project.
    - hyperliner 11y ago
      Yeah, but the economics of those businesses do not scale as well as software.
    - hendzen 11y ago
      Name one (other than RedHat) that is consistently profitable.
      - pritambaral 11y ago
        2ndQuadrant
      - niutech 11y ago
        Novell (now Micro Focus)
  - sigjuice 11y ago
    Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money? https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#DoesTheGPLAllow...
NDizzle 11y ago
Yeah I'm still reeling from reading this headline. My reaction is kind of like that scene in Super Troopers where the kid eats a bag full of mushrooms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb-cAJRZrlA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb-cAJRZrlA

tomschlick 11y ago

I would never use SQL server willingly but I really like the direction Microsoft is taking lately. They are a software company and restricting their software to PCs running Windows only doesn't make sense.

Nullabillity 11y ago
Have they released anything consumer-oriented on Linux yet?
- qume 11y ago
  Kind of - Skype. Although it was released before MS purchased the company and since then it hasn't been maintained very well.
  - smacktoward 11y ago
    Skype on Linux feels a lot more like "legacy product MS inherited and then ignored" than "hot new product under active development."
  - npongratz 11y ago
    Maintained so poorly that we get this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11165568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11165568
  - rogerbinns 11y ago
    Skype on Linux seems to have different experiences for different people. For example it is rock solid for me, and always works well. I don't remember any crashes. But it also essentially never gets updated. I have colleagues on Windows, Mac and iOS where skype is getting updated, but it mostly seems to frustrate them by having an unpleasant user experience. Just today I was sharing my screen but they couldn't actually find it in the skype user interface! This is Microsoft's business to lose. But network effects mean you have to keep more of the audience satisfied because excluding people means they take themselves and those they interact with away to an alternative.

intermerda 11y ago

Can someone tell me why I would want to use SQL Server when there are so many robust and free RDBMS available on Linux?

miguelrochefort 11y ago
Enterprise stuff.
sebastienros 11y ago
Because features!
karlshea 11y ago
You might have an application that uses SQL Server-specific features, and if you have a separate database server cluster now you just have to pay for SQL Server licenses instead both it and Windows Server.
- ericfrederich 11y ago
  Wonder if the pricing is such that SQL Server for Linux is the exact same price as SWL Server for Windows + Windows
  - ohitsdom 11y ago
    It'd be ridiculous to charge different amounts for a license based on the OS. Has that ever happened before?
    - makomk 11y ago
      I believe Apple like to buy up software and then charge more for it on non-Mac OSes.
    - hyperliner 11y ago
      It makes sense to charge different for different OS. Using absurd examples, it would not make sense to charge the same for a hypothetical version of SS for iOS than say another hypothetical version of SS specialized for CoreOS for instance.

hoodoof 11y ago

Is Microsoft deliberately trying to end Windows as a back end server? What is the underlying strategic outcome that makes this a good idea for Microsoft? BTW if you reply to this comment with a "Microsoft smackdown" comment then your comment is not very interesting. I'm interested to hear some thoughtful replies, not Linux fanboy pile-on and jeering.

evm9 11y ago
It's already over, they're just trying to reconcile.
- newjersey 11y ago
  I'm especially excited for asp.net core on GNU/Linux. Maybe this is meant to fight off postgres and -- more importantly -- Oracle.
robert_foss 11y ago
Is there any point in keeping it alive? Is it actually used by a meaningful amount of people and businesses?
- pfg 11y ago
  Yes, it's very common in enterprise scenarios and with regular SMBs.
- tdicola 11y ago
  Absolutely, it still brings in billions in revenue each quarter.
- FireBeyond 11y ago
  When was the last time you were in the office of a medium or large company that did NOT have an AD domain?
- UK-AL 11y ago
  I'd probably guess its the most popular enterprise os excluding web hosting. On average I've seen better windows server setups then Linux setups simply because windows servers tend be used in 'enterprise' solutions.

gfodor 11y ago

Looks like they announced this 3 weeks early.

pat_space 11y ago
could you clarify? I don't get the reference.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- rjdevereux 11y ago
  As in an April fools joke
- pekim 11y ago
  It's a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day .
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- sciurus 11y ago
  Three weeks from now is April Fool's Day.

emn13 11y ago

A few years ago, I would have though that somebody posted this three weeks early.

jordz 11y ago

I was not expecting that at all.

merb 11y ago

haha i thought I'm reading that microsoft will bring MSSQL to Linux. But I'm just dreaming

noja 11y ago
Err didn't they announce exactly that?

epx 11y ago

Time to invite that girl again for a date (that one that said that hell would freeze before she would accept my invitation).

rb808 11y ago

I really love developing on sql server, but... From memory I remember when they "acquired" the source from Sybase and one of the selling points was that they could strip out all the multi-platform complexity from the source code. Being windows-only meant it was simpler, less complex code, faster and less buggy. It also confuses my view of what MS has been doing. Maybe Azure is more important than Windows now? Its going to be kinda weird to see SQL Server on Linux in Azure.

nice__two 11y ago
It's simple: we're living in a heterogeneous computing environment now and Microsoft cannot ignore that any longer now.
swalsh 11y ago
They took the former vp of Azure, and made him the CEO. Microsoft is very serious about Azure.
justin66 11y ago
I'm pretty sure someone born when they acquired the source to Sybase is now old enough to vote.
eropple 11y ago
> Being windows-only meant it was simpler, less complex code, faster and less buggy. So you don't think that, maybe-just-maybe, it's gotten a little easier to write cross-platform code in the last twenty-three years?
jklowden 11y ago
You're not thinking like a businessman. That purchase from Sybase 23 years ago and this announcement today have no technical justification. They're business decisions. The technical aspect is just a cost of doing business. Their bet evidently is they can make more money selling SQL Server without Windows than with it.

mrbluesman 11y ago

The question now is, will they offer up a free edition to compete with MySQL? And when will they open-source it? (I can't believe I'm actually saying that.)

nickpeterson 11y ago
There is a free (but not open source) edition and it's been available for some time. SQL Server Express. It has very severe limitations though, which make it difficult to recommend.
- bragh 11y ago
  Depends on the use case. A local POS vendor is running most of their local databases in stores (1..10 registers) on the Express version. Not sure how often they archive data out of the main database, though.
matthewarkin 11y ago
There is SQL Server Express though it has a 10GB limit

talles 11y ago

> In-memory database support for every workload with performance increases up to 30-100x Can't wait to try this one, a Redis-like service with all the consistency of a mature SQL database (in theory at least). Don't get me wrong, I've being deploying Redis in production and I'm love with it, but it's nice to have an alternative with referential integrity not to mention the "isomorphic" effect (you'll be able to switch from non-volatile to volatile persistence without the wizardry required by the typical in-memory databases).

EvanAnderson 11y ago

Maybe my secret hope of Exchange on Linux isn't completely insane after all...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
sauere 11y ago
Don't see that one happening. Exchange is too tightly coupled with Active Directory and IIS.
- EvanAnderson 11y ago
  I don't think Exchange uses any interface other than LDAP to hit Active Directory, so I'd think there's at least a fighting chance that the AD requirement could be satisfied by other LDAP servers. I can't speak to the IIS integration anymore-- I quit following that at a low level back in the Exchange '03 timeframe. I would suspect there's a clear line between IIS and Exchange, however, that could be used to facilitate an adapter layer for a flexible HTTP(S) server like nginx. The SMTP, POP, and IMAP services, though, would probably involve a lot of re-implementation.
  - lukeh 11y ago
    Last time I checked it also uses a lot of RPC protocols, e.g. NSPI.
ZenoArrow 11y ago
IIRC Exchange depends on Active Directory. I would've thought porting AD to Linux would be a huge undertaking, but then again I would've thought the same about MSSQL, so like you say maybe it's not so insane.
bsharitt 11y ago
I wouldn't hold my breath. I'm guessing this is more tied to the .Net moves to Linux and getting their full web stack on Linux. Though if their long term strategy is to give up Windows Server, then everything may come to Linux.

NicoJuicy 11y ago

I wonder if i can run EF on Windows with a SQL Server backend now? What would be the memory usage difference?

jnevill 11y ago
Doesn't EF just use an ODBC connection? I can't imagine that the OS upon which the Server is running would have any effect on something as high up the stack as ODBC/OLEDB.
- snuxoll 11y ago
  ADO.NET, not ODBC.

netcraft 11y ago

this will make it much more available to containerized stacks for sure.

hoodoof 11y ago

Errr, how exactly does this work? What's the underlying technology that makes it possible?

jnevill 11y ago
I'd like to know more about this too. Data storage and retrieval is such an important and integral part of an RDBMS and the switch to Linux suggests that they've had to tear up a lot of their low-level logic. How well they've done optimizing storage for EXT3/EXT4 seems to be pretty important. It would be interesting to see what's changed and how they managed this.
- oblio 11y ago
  If past Microsoft is any reference, most of the software is cross platform. It is designed from the start to be cross platform. It's just that they never bothered to actually port it to anything other than Windows. Of course, bits and pieces might be tied to a platform and the dependency chain might drag other parts down, but overall Windows, Office, etc. generally have some sort of abstraction at the lower level that could theoretically allow porting to any platform.
  - jnevill 11y ago
    That's my concern though. When you look at other enterprise-sized RDBMS you find tight integration at the "machine" level. Oracle's storage, for instance, uses "Blocks" which are sized based on the block size of the disk they are writing to. This tight integration at such a low level is part of what makes these RDBMS's fast. I would imagine that instead of running on an abstract layer that can be commonly built across many OS's that an RDBMS like Sql Server would be more tightly integrated with the machine they are running on in order to maximize performance and disk space. If so, I would really love to dig through what that means for SQL server.
    - telotortium 11y ago
      Might that not imply that the implementation is relatively little tied to a particular OS? Taking your example, as long as there's a way to get the block size for a disk, there's not much more OS-specific code to deal with -- in particular, adapting your code to the file system doesn't need to be done since the DB will essentially create its own anyway. Similarly, only a few threading primitives need to be used -- the DB isn't going to tie itself heavily to the vagaries of the async IO implementation, which does tend to differ heavily and pervasively between platforms.

gtrubetskoy 11y ago

Even as recently as a year ago this would pass as a great April Fools joke. Boy how have the times changed.

desireco42 11y ago

Microsoft, you devil! That is awesome news. It will definitely push others to up their db game. One thing is DB engine, other is a suite of tools that goes along with it.

Symbiote 11y ago

For anyone unaware, SQL Server is a 'fork' of Sybase after an agreement between Sybase and Microsoft ended in 1993. At that point, "Sybase SQL Server version 4.2 and Microsoft SQL Server are identical." Sybase runs happily on Unix, Linux or Windows. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybase

sixdimensional 11y ago
...and Sybase, which is a descendant of Ingres that also runs happily on Unix, Linux or Windows. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingres_(database) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingres_(database)
dsp1234 11y ago
At that point, "Sybase SQL Server version 4.2 and Microsoft SQL Server are identical." Well, that's 23 years ago... But even at mssql V7[0], most of the systems had internal rewrites that made them different than Sybase. [0] - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/euanga/2006/01/19/sql-mythbusters-sql-server-is-really-a-sybase-product-not-a-microsoft-one/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/euanga/2006/01/19/sql-mythb...
protomyth 11y ago
Sybase has not kept their end up to what Microsoft has been pushing in SQL Server. Transact-SQL is nicer on SQL Server and the last time I used Sybase the query planner was problematic to the point of needed to force loads of indexes.
- yread 11y ago
  I second that, we had to run a medium sized application on FusionIO cards because Sybase was just terrible at query optimization
  - protomyth 11y ago
    We did a lot of monitoring and index forcing. We queried the system tables and go the current query plan for the statements running. We were already on one of the biggest boxes HP built (Superdome) with some fun fast storage for the db.

PedroBatista 11y ago

For years I told my boss: "I'd love to use SQL Server like you suggested, but it doesn't run on Linux". Now I'm finished.

sixdimensional 11y ago

I for one am excited to hear about this move and was wondering if it would ever happen. This will help keep SQL Server alive and growing (I think) and who knows, maybe bits and pieces will even become open source some day (that's optimistic perhaps). I am an equal opportunity consumer of database technology - something we all should be (e.g. use the right tool for the job when appropriate). I have used MANY different databases, open source and commercial, and there are better ones and worse ones across the spectrum. I think it is naive to criticize this move in any way - it is giving more choice so should be supported. That said, SQL Server has a low barrier to entry, a very good implementation of the SQL language, an advanced optimizer, strong storage engine, management tools and a lot of nice BI features. Although you don't hear about it much, SQL Server also has Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) which is their MPP database - ironically which used to be built using Ingres and Java of all things. In my experience, SQL Server <-> PostgreSQL is the closest commercial to open source comparison (core database engine-wise) I can think of. This makes sense when you consider - both of them started as Ingres! Of course, Postgres and SQL Server have totally different user experiences (database management, tooling, etc.) and many different features.

hamitron 11y ago
I too am excited, as I was faced with the challenge of building a rails app with a SQL server database backend. Sure there is a solid adapter, but it wasn't perfect, and we couldn't effectively run tests on it.
- bdcravens 11y ago
  It won't be generally available until mid-2017. I've built a Rails app atop a large legacy SQL Server, and I really haven't run into anything that wouldn't run. (aside from `rails db`)
kbenson 11y ago
Coming from mostly a Linux/MySQL background, I've had reason to use MSSQL for the last few years. It's really solid, and seems to optimize queries well, which is good, because there's a few things that I still find really annoying, such as no GROUP_CONCAT. There is a more general method to do the same thing, but wow is that method cumbersome in comparison (although undoubtedly more powerful).

DKnoll 11y ago

They mentioned a preview available today, but I'm not seeing it on the Partner or MSDN portals. Anybody got a link?

jnevill 11y ago
At the end of the article (although it's not stated, and the link was down about when this was posted): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/sql-server-on-linux.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/sql-server-on-l...
- DKnoll 11y ago
  Thanks for the assist, looking forward to testing this out.

callesgg 11y ago

very interesting move strategically. would I use it for my own project's? no. would I use it for some random software that requires mssql? yes.

jedberg 11y ago

Just the other day I was discussing with some folks that Microsoft has made an amazing effort of the last two years to win back the hearts and minds of developers. This is another great step in that direction.

fideloper 11y ago

I work on a software product that supports MySQL, PgSQL and SqlServer (if they run it on Windows, since we only support the official Windows PHP drivers). SqlServer has always been the best performing and least troublesome database in terms of weird edge cases, backup, restoration, and (especially!) performing expensive SELECTS on databases that have grown into the 100's of Gigabytes in size. Based on my experience, for all the (often deserved) hate on M$, SqlServer is really a shining star. That being said, I am a little scared to support SqlServer on Linux, as I imagine it will have to be different in quite some potentially fundamental ways to work on Linux - I'd love to hear if anyone has opinions on that aspect.

nickpeterson 11y ago
Keep in mind that SQL Server basically runs on top of it's own conception of an operation system even when installed on Windows. It's called SQLOS and the work done on that was probably what largely enabled this to happen because there was already an existing layer of abstraction in place for development to use. That said, I think that this will probably come with a large amount of caveats, for instance, I wouldn't be surprised if when it launches it's just the core SQL engine and not the extra pieces (SSIS,SSAS,SSRS,MDS, et cetera).
- walkingolof 11y ago
  Makes sens since SQL Server granpa is "Sybase for OS/2". There are probably very few lines of code left from those days (-94:ish), but the way of thinking is probably still there and what enabled this.
  - cokernel_hacker 11y ago
    SQLOS is a relatively new component, it was introduced for SQL Server 2005. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/slavao/archive/2005/02/05/367816.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/slavao/archive/2005/02/05/367816.asp...
- copperx 11y ago
  > Keep in mind that SQL Server basically runs on top of it's own conception of an operation system even when installed on Windows. What is the reason for this?

merpnderp 11y ago

I bet a lot of Microsoft's push to Linux is that something like 98% of the internet runs on non-windows OS's.

aikah 11y ago

Ok, good. Now how much a SQL Server on Linux license is going to cost ? Does it mean businesses using Linux will now be subject to Microsoft license audits ?

yardie 11y ago
Oracle runs on Linux. Oracle is a member of BSA. If you use oracle on Linux you are still subject to audits. Why would this be any different for Microsoft.

cturner 11y ago

How long until Microsoft put out their own BSD distribution?

justin66 11y ago
How long until the memory of the last antitrust action by a major government fades?
- bdcravens 11y ago
  Never. Microsoft could open source Windows and on HN and elsewhere you'll hear the same tired memes.
mixedCase 11y ago
They have their own Microsoft Linux, but it's for Azure internal use only.
- cturner 11y ago
  Thanks, I'd missed this. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/18/microsoft_has_developed_its_own_linux_repeat_microsoft_has_developed_its_own_linux/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/18/microsoft_has_develo...
rmind 11y ago
Well, back in 1980s, Microsoft had its own UNIX system called Xenix. It was not BSD, but it incorporated some programs from it.

oblio 11y ago

Now if they port Microsoft Office, we'll finally be able to say: "hell hath frozen over".

txdv 11y ago
not gonna happen, office is pure client technology
- oblio 11y ago
  I'd say that it is unlikely, but I wouldn't call it impossible. Most of the recent moves out of Microsoft seem to point at a large strategic shift, away from Windows. In the past the Windows division had an iron grip on Microsoft, it seems to be loosening (see .Net port, VSCode, etc.).
nickpeterson 11y ago
Well, it wouldn't surprise me, because look at the work they're doing to support Android.
- discordance 11y ago
  Just because it's possible doesn't mean it will happen. Office is on Android because it has a huge market share. Linux desktop still is very low market share so an Office client doesn't make sense there, whereas Linux server is high market share so SQL Server does make sense.

aninteger 11y ago

Does anyone know if this potentially includes a replacement for FreeTDS. A replacement would mean open source in this context.

bureado 11y ago
Scroll down on this page for more information on client drivers: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/sql-server-on-linux.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/sql-server-on-l...
- aninteger 11y ago
  Sadly not open source and no ability to use it with CentOS 6.
  - teh_klev 11y ago
    Support for RedHat 5, 6 and 7 so it'll work on CentOS 6 which is re-packaged, de-branded RHEL: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36437 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=364... Can't really help you with the open source side of things.
- smartbit 11y ago
  De SQL Server Native Client on Windows supports many features [1], most of which are not supported with aforementioned non-windows SQL clients. JDBC & Linux ODBC support a few High Availability features (with try/catch). JSON, Ruby and Python seemingly support only basic connections. What are the effects of this? Does anyone have experience migrating SQL Server clients away from Windows? Do Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL or others have database-clients with more rich feature sets? Or are these Native Client features barely used and not missed on non-Windows clients? [1] https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms131456.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms131456.aspx

bifrost 11y ago

I can't wait to try this in the FreeBSD Linuxulator!

tachion 11y ago
We havent seen the sources yet but with some luck we will be able to get it in ports without the need for linux kernel emulation ;)

rocky1138 11y ago

It's taken a ton of years, but here we are: "If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won." -Linus Torvalds

serge2k 11y ago
Everyone already knew linux for servers is winning.
- SideburnsOfDoom 11y ago
  And since running those Linux servers in Azure results in revenue flowing to Microsoft by the hour, it seems that MS also winning here. The cloud market share of Azure vs. AWS is however a different dogfight.
- NeutronBoy 11y ago
  Outside of Silicon Valley, it's not so cut and dry.
  - kristopolous 11y ago
    Could you take a more nuanced and defined stance? What sectors, markets, or users are you referring to?
    - ktRolster 11y ago
      The Seattle market tends to use Microsoft a lot.
    - UK-AL 11y ago
      Virtually any major corporation will have major installations of AD, File Servers, Print Servers, etc using MS infrastructure.
    - stunthamsterio 11y ago
      I'll chime in; for me this is a god send. I currently work with a client who specialises in working with automotive companies (Ford, Renault, Peugeot etc), and it turns out that automotive companies love MS SQL. The stack I'm working with is a Java/Linux stack with a Windows/MSSQL backend, simply because it didn't scare the customer as much as Linux/Java Linux/Postgres. It looks like as an industry they are starting to loosen up a little now, but those MS SQL databases are going to be around for a while, and it'll be nice if I can at least standardise onto a single set of skills and install patterns for the platform OS.

icewater0 11y ago

Oooh, I can't wait to ignore Microsoft products on Linux as well! PostgreSQL for me thanks.

shiftoutbox 11y ago

Checks calendar , hurmm it's not April 1st ... ? Wait I remember sun one asp server . Please tell me this isn't sql server written in c# using mono !

dhd415 11y ago

I'm very interested to hear some of the details about how the storage engine was ported to Linux. One of the advantages of SQL Server was how well it exploited the Windows overlapped I/O model for disk access. When running large selects, backups, or restores, SQL Server always uses the full bandwidth of my disk subsystem. When I built a prototype of my application on PostgreSQL (which I would much rather run for its free licenses and more mature indexing), I had to tweak all kinds of things to get it to use the full bandwidth of my disk system and I was not always successful.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
_wmd 11y ago
It's not difficult to mimic overlapped IO using a thread pool, and not that much less efficient either, assuming the pending request count is quite low
ajross 11y ago
The space of applications for which storage bandwidth is a limit on performance but where the overall scale is appropriate for a SQL RDBMS is shrinking every year. Is this even a meaningful niche? Basically, http://yourdatafitsinram.com/ http://yourdatafitsinram.com/

davidw 11y ago

I remember when Oracle became available for Linux - that was the beginning of a new era in terms of the legitimacy it conferred on Linux. (Yes, I know, Oracle the company sucks, but that's tangential to this particular discussion). I wonder if this is the beginning of a similar change in the industry.

blueside 11y ago

of course, the major downside to this is that linux admins will now have the possibility that they have to work with sql server

ChicagoDave 11y ago

Gob-smacked.

cmdrfred 11y ago

I've always had this question and this looks like my chance to ask it. If you are developing new software today why on earth would you use SQL server? Is the price tag justified over the many free and open source alternatives?

trollied 11y ago

May not have been as hard to port as you all think. SQL Server was a port of Sybase, which was *NIX based anyway

bdcravens 11y ago
Pretty sure the code has changed enough in 23 years that this wasn't relevant.

colemannerd 11y ago

I am incredibly excited. This is the first step towards a docker version of SQL Server which for our company would enable us so many options to improve developers lives. Even if we stay with Windows for production SQL deployments, this will make development awesome.

bboreham 11y ago
Wouldn't Docker for Windows (in preview for many months now) count as the first step?
windowsworkstoo 11y ago
What do you expect Docker to do for you (in development) that you can't already do with SSDT and LocalDB?
luisdbosquez 11y ago
In the sign up page (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/sql-server-on-linux.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/sql-server-on-l...) you'll find this quote: "Please note that at this time, SQL Server on Linux is available on Ubuntu or as Docker image." :)

krmmalik 11y ago

This is huge and I wonder if this now means that they'll also bring other products to Linux such as Microsoft Power BI. It would definitely make sense in light of this announcement.

krylon 11y ago

Having worked as a Windows admin for the the past three years, the one piece of Microsoft technology that never gave me the least bit of trouble is SQL Server. It's expensive (compared to the € 0,- price tag of PostgreSQL), but otherwise I like it very much. It will be interesting to see SQL Server on Linux.

blinkingled 11y ago

From http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-is-porting-sql-server-to-linux/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-is-porting-sql-server... - "The spokesperson also acknowledged that Microsoft won't be bringing all of the same capabilities in SQL Server 2016 to Linux; it will be just the "core relational database capabilities." As somewhat expected this will be a limited release catering mostly to cloud customers (Azure in particular) - who knows down the road they will port all features to Linux including the UI management tools but I would be surprised if they don't keep the niche features Windows-only. Welcome announcement anyway - having a supported mainstream DB other than Oracle on Linux is a good thing.

kbenson 11y ago
> I would be surprised if they don't keep the niche features Windows-only. For some definition of niche, which in this case may very well include "enterprise class features" such as replication... This is a way for MS to increase exposure and draw people into their ecosystem (at least for a part of their infrastructure) in an increasingly OS agnostic world. I don't think it makes sense for them to cannibalize their current revenue sources to do so, and a part of that is requiring expensive Windows Server licenses for high-end MSSQL features.
- blinkingled 11y ago
  Yeah, replication, encryption, memory optimized tables, search etc. come to mind.
lmm 11y ago
To my mind MySQL and PostgreSQL are both more mainstream than either Oracle or MSSQL, and it's possible to buy a support contract for either?
- blinkingled 11y ago
  Mainstream yes and you can buy support for them but they are not supported by majority of the Enterprise 3rd party/COTS software. Most enterprise products you can license only work with Oracle on Linux.

qaq 11y ago

One of the few usable products MS has (haven't used it since SQL Server 2000 though).

rbanffy 11y ago

The three best Microsoft products are their natural keyboard, the mice and SQL Server. Now all of them work with my OS.

simoncion 11y ago
> The three best Microsoft products are their natural keyboard... The Natural Keyboards [0] have been getting less and less durable as the years go by. My first one lasted for ~five years. My second, two or three. My third is less than a year old and already suffering from intermittent failure to register keypresses, as well as surprisingly rapid breakdown of the faux leather material that covers the bottom portion of the keyboard. (The faux leather breakdown is a first for me... all the other keyboards suffered mechanical failure long before I saw any sort of wear on the bottom portion material.) [0] Specifically, the MSFT Natural Ergonomic Keyboard X000 models that have the stupid, useless zoom slider.
- rbanffy 11y ago
  I said they are the best, not that they are still very good ;-) But I agree with you. My next one will be a kinesis.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    > ...they are the best, not that they are still very good... And I agree with you on both counts. :D Are you thinking about one of the models with the bowl curves for the keys? If you are, have you typed on one? If you did, what did you think of it?
    - rbanffy 11y ago
      I did, and it's wonderful. It's tough to adjust back to a laptop keyboard, however. And switching regularly may create new tissue in your cerebellum.
sqldba 11y ago
I really want the wireless natural keyboard with a built in number pad. I know it's seperate but it's not the same. But the baseball mouse really hurts my hand; and I tried using it for a month before giving up.

ape4 11y ago

Seems quite insular to call it just "SQL Server". We already have Postgres SQL Server, MySql SQL Server, etc. They should call it "Microsoft SQL Server".

Zr40 11y ago
No, it's just PostgreSQL and MySQL. Neither has "Server" in its name.
kyberias 11y ago
They do but they also seem to own the trademark to "SQL Server": https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/trademarks/en-us.aspx#70cf4cc4-bd8e-48a5-90e0-b4e0fe464527 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/t...

shirro 11y ago

I have a lot of negative feelings about Microsoft because of the historical baggage but they have some good products and technologies. I am also fairly negative on Oracle but when they released their database on Linux it was important for me at the time as it gave a boost to Linux server work (now with added DBA). There is a lot of software that targets a limited subset of databases due to SQL incompatibilities/features and sometimes that is a subset of one. Getting some of those backends on Linux would be nice for people who have concentrated on unix/linux skills to the detriment of their Windows knowledge. This eats Windows OS sales to some extent but I am sure they can make it up with database licenses and market share if they take the product seriously.

kourosh4000 11y ago

Hey guys, I'm trying to learn about this stuff, would anybody pls help me out!?

kourosh4000 11y ago

Hey there! I'm trying to learn about this stuff , would anyone pls help me out how to be a hacker?

algorithmsRcool 11y ago
If you mean hacker in the sense that you want to learn about breaking into computers, then you've come to the wrong place. Hacker news is a startup/technology oriented news aggregator with a comments section. Not a den of criminals. (depending on your views about capitalism i suppose)

alexc05 11y ago

This is another awesome piece of news! If you're interested in using docker+.NetCore+EF a "proper" database was the only piece missing.

broodbucket 11y ago
What's EF in this context?
- recursive 11y ago
  Entity Framework
- wmeddie 11y ago
  Entity Framework. Microsoft's high-level ORM for .Net.
bigdubs 11y ago
postgres is still a "proper" database.
- alexc05 11y ago
  Sorry, you're 100% right and I agree with you on that. however http://www.npgsql.org/ http://www.npgsql.org/ is not yet a "first class" driver. Notice the tags on there, "Stable" release is inaccessible and unstable has warnings (also it is labelled as unstable) I would be less likely to feel secure in trusting the unstable release of a third party driver even though I know that the .NET team mentioned NPG during the last community standup. My understanding was that they said members of the Entity Framework team are working with the team at NPG. I do think that it will be usable very soon, but the SQLServer drivers are working now.
  - bigdubs 11y ago
    I have some experience experimenting with NPGSQL and it was definitely not production ready; huge performance problems and general issues abound. I wish someone would step up and write a better .net postgres driver.

JimmaDaRustla 11y ago

Wow. Just two days ago we were wishing SQL was available in Linux so we could move away from Oracle.

jamespitts 11y ago

Very happy to see this. MS is extending the olive branch in so many ways, and we in the open source community can learn to forgive. Still, it will be hard to get over the mutual hostility from decades past. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/trudy-bourgeois/what-george-wallace-taugh_b_6647468.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/trudy-bourgeois/what-george-wa...

jamespitts 11y ago
So what's up? Why do you disagree?

arenaninja 11y ago

I just started a job where mssql is used extensively. They're trying to get a PHP 7 application off the ground and the lack of a mssql driver (non-PDO) for PHP 7 is a big pain point. As of Jan 2016, they had released a beta release and were taking a poll on what platform they should support next (I'm not kidding, the entire history is here: https://github.com/Azure/msphpsql/issues/58 https://github.com/Azure/msphpsql/issues/58). Unfortunately it seems support is secondary in this case to Microsoft, as they are unable or unwilling to allocate the necessary resources

1812Overture 11y ago
Why are they avoiding PDO? Seems like that's what people should be moving towards in terms of flexibility and security.
- e12e 11y ago
  That struck me as odd too (I'm not really up to date on php7, and haven't considered php on windows in at least a decade). But perhaps it's because the PDO-driver is built on the old TSQL-interface, and MS own drivers haven't been ported to php7 yet (not with a stable release, anyway) ? http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pdo-dblib.php http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pdo-dblib.php https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/ff657782.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/ff657782.aspx https://github.com/Azure/msphpsql/tree/PHP-7.0 https://github.com/Azure/msphpsql/tree/PHP-7.0
- arenaninja 11y ago
  I've used and liked PDO myself in the past. The issue is that even though the application would pretty much simply run on PHP7 (since it runs on 5.6 already) if MS had a compatible driver instead of contemplating a re-write

blakecaldwell 11y ago

This would never happen if Steve Ballmer was still alive.

ryao 11y ago
He is not dead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer
- blakecaldwell 11y ago
  Was joking :)

jasonjei 11y ago

I wonder if the UI management tools will be web-based like GCloud/AWS/Azure, or if they will be OS-specific. Still, it's very impressive that Microsoft is moving outside its own OS.

reitoei 11y ago
They'd have to be web-based, surely.

stevehiehn 11y ago

The reason this has my attention is because 'R' is being integrated into the engine.

ninjakeyboard 11y ago

I don't really know why I would choose to use sql server if I wasn't already locked in to MS as a vendor. Is the idea that it gives people the ability to move away from MS if they already have vendor lock in? Or is it to hopefully compete against eg Oracle.

anonbanker 11y ago

Someone page Vinod Valloppillil[0] for a quote on this one. Anyone know if he's still in the industry? 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents

tn13 11y ago

I find this really weird for the following reason. Only cost conscious developers care about running db server on the same machine as application server to keep costs low. Such people wont buy SQL Server at all for the cost related reasons. Non cost conscious developers can always run SQL Server on a separate Windows machine while keeping their application servers on Linux. Except Microsoft intends to make SQL Server free and make it replace Mysql among small developers and later help them buy SQL Server instances in cloud and make money.

ryanmarsh 11y ago

I've always enjoyed using SQL Server and I'm really happy about how it's grown over the years in features and performance. I really never thought this day would come.

jhwhite 11y ago

Is SQL Server Management Studio available on Linux? Is there anything like it on Linux?

l3m0ndr0p 11y ago

OMG - They'll probably cripple the implementation of this. I wouldn't trust MS on this. It sounds nice, but I wouldn't set this up if it meant we could have world peace... MS SQL relies heavily on Windows OS API. How are they going to pull this off? With some kind of VM layer running under linux with a stripped down Window OS which will run MS SQL? MS Should announce that they are going to fork a version of Linux with their brand MS-Linux. Hell - If they port every piece of software over to Linux, they would rule the world & back-end server market. Any way. Good luck!

nodesocket 11y ago

MSSQL actually is really mature and performant (on par with Oracle) and I'm interested to see some benchmarks vs MySQL and PostGRES. I think it could become the replacement for SQL enterprise, even over the widely loved PostGRES.

jklowden 11y ago
Don't hold your breath. The EULA for SQL Server prohibits publishing benchmark results. It's not completely self-serving. Back when magazines were made of paper, "DBMS Faceoff!" articles sold a lot of copy, and generated more heat than light. A DBMS is a complex beast, enough so that it's impossible to say if X is faster than Y for all workloads.

alexc05 11y ago

I wonder if SSMS tools are going to go crossplat like VSCODE? How great would it be to have first-class sql-server-management-studio on your Mac/Linux desktop? I wonder if SqlExpress is going to be available on Linux too?

ryao 11y ago

Here is the obligatory admiral ackbar link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F4qzPbcFiA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F4qzPbcFiA With that out of the way, I wonder if they will port their other software like Mcrosoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Office, various games, etcetera.

bhaavan 11y ago

`Please join me Satya Nadella, Joseph Sirosh and Judson Althoff at our Data Driven ..... Thanks, Scott ` This is why there is a comma in grammar. `me Satya Nadella, X and Y` is different from `me, Satya Nadella, X and Y`

rawells14 11y ago

This is absolutely amazing

Themistocles 11y ago

..........................

tasnimreza 11y ago

Awesome :) Now a days Microsoft changed a lot, welcome to the new world (Linux). The raise of NoSql, how MS SQL survived ! amazing.

sbose78 11y ago

This is huge, competition for Oracle increases. :)

z3t4 11y ago

Using SQL Server on Linux would be like swearing in church silly smile

intrasight 11y ago

This could reduce the cost of using SQL Server on AWS if Amazon supports this flavor.

binoyxj 11y ago

Why Microsoft needs SQL Server on Linux http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-microsoft-needs-sql-server-on-linux/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-microsoft-needs-sql-server-...

rajeevk 11y ago

With this trend, I will not be surprised if Microsoft releases its own Linux distro which will be optimized for MS software (e.g. sql server)

Corrado 11y ago

The first thing that comes to mind with this announcement is about SQLServer drivers for non-Windows platforms. Years ago, it was all but impossible to talk to "DataCenter" SQLServer from anything but Windows. Apparently, the connection URI was a configuration endpoint and the driver was responsible for switching between active masters. This meant that a simple ODBC driver wouldn't work as there was no real endpoint to connect to. A real Linux driver would be great; an open source one would be outstanding! NOTE: This type of thing is what made me hate Microsoft for so long, and even today I find it difficult to recommend them as a solution provider for anything, on any platform. So, while I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, I'll continue working to move everything I can, including databases, to another platform.

Lennu 11y ago

Just have to say, it is great to see Microsoft turning again into a software company! Even after all the hate, they do great products and good stable software. A great example of a successful software company.

lxsameer 11y ago

hehe, No thank you

anacleto 11y ago

Good move. It's just late.

int0x80 11y ago

if you can't fight them, join them!

listentojohan 11y ago

Never really found a GUI I liked as much as MSSQL (not that you always need it, but it's nice!) - though I'm really in love with postgres - I've sometimes found myself just thinking "why doesn't everyone do it like this".

betimsl 11y ago

Can't wait to see benchmarks of this on same config hardware :D

gargravarr 11y ago

I never thought I'd see this happen, but it turns out to be quite a pleasant surprise. I know it's already possible to run ASP.Net on Linux via Apache, so this is the next logical step. I'm quite impressed by the possibility of running SQL Server on Linux; as a T-SQL developer immediately out of university, I have come to appreciate its speed and efficiency. It's not perfect and it does have its annoying quirks, but in general it's quite a sturdy RDBMS. MySQL has demonstrated some much more WTF-y quirks (try inserting a varchar into an int column!) and there are places I prefer T-SQL syntax (e.g. temp tables). Management tools don't really factor into it, you can get third-party tools that support intellisense etc. on different RDBMSs. In short, I would have few reservations about using SQL Server for my own projects (since I run exclusively Linux at home). Licensing is another story though; I dread to think how much it'll cost, but this is a pretty amazing step in the right direction, adding to a recent history of such steps, for Microsoft.

philjackson 11y ago

Every time there's an announcement like this, I like to remember back to the campaign of FUD that MS peddled against Linux. I think Ballmer once called the OS a "cancer".

known 11y ago

Isn't it too little and too late?

markusbrutus 11y ago

It's clear that Nadella is trying to pull some kind of embrace-extend-extinguish strategy. I would consider part of the same strategy the offering of TypeScript which could be the mother of all lock-in-embrace-extend-extinguish plays if Microsoft establishes a beachhead on the browser and starts 'extending' TypeScript / JavaScript (to 'enhance user experience' of course). Fortunately, the TypeScript (JavaScript for people who don't like JavaScript) abomination is dying alongside AngularJS since it became apparent how very much Microsoft-y the whole thing has become.

dschiptsov 11y ago

It would be more beneficial for whole community to contribute to Postgres. We already have fairly superior commercial solution, like Informix Dynamic Server family, which is superior in everything, except compatibility with MS, that lost "competition" (to meme-based popularity) to crap like MySQL or bloatware like Oracle. This is, again, good publicity and excellent PR action, but my bet is that performance and especially stability will be poor, like it is with .Net port or Skype port. To bring a server to the market requires expertise with target platform which very few UNIX shops has. Open sourcing IDS, which has remarkable technology inside, which is partially related to Postgres, would be a much better move.)

jroseattle 11y ago

I don't get many predictions right, but 3 years ago I stated to a group of colleagues: "By 2019, Microsoft will be the largest open-source software company on the planet." Yes, I deserved the laughs I received. Not sure about the accuracy of my prediction, but I'll bet I'm closer to right than wrong by that time.

jenkstom 11y ago

I've used a lot of databases over the past 25 years. From DBase flat files to the Borland Database Engine to MSSQL (pre and post 2K), Interbase / Firebird, DB2, PostgreSQL, MySql/MariaDb, Sqlite and more. I haven't used MSSQL in a few years and had to dive back into it for an integration project. Oh my, I forgot how user unfriendly it is. I can't call a stored procedure from a select query? Ok, write a user-defined wrapper function. Oh wait, I can't call a stored procedure from there either. Now I know why the consultants use a VBA script in Excel to load data... it's actually the easiest way, ridiculously convoluted as it is, if your logic is implemented as stored procedures. I remember the first time I wrote a stored procedure in PostgreSQL. It was the point at which I decided I would never willingly choose MSSQL for a project again. If you write a lot of stored procedures / TSQL in MS SQL Server, do yourself a favor and check out how it is done in PostgreSQL. It's an order of magnitude simpler and saner.

ianamartin 11y ago

This is really exciting. I choose Postgres for side projects and new consulting work. But there are often times when you just don't have a choice. Sometimes it's SQL Server or bust, and you have to work with it. Hell, sometimes, it's MySQL, and you don't have a choice. I don't hate it at all. I wish it had more of the PL parts of PL/SQL because that would make my life sometimes easier. I had to implement some very crazy/stupid statistical procedures with SQL Server. It kind of sucked in ways that would have been a lot better in Postgres. Lots and lots of fun with dynamic SQL where you're stuffing SQL into variables and interpolating column names from variables into those strings. It was awful. But it worked. If SQL Server would bring in even some of the PL features of Postgres or Oracle, I would use in a heartbeat. The tooling that MS provides for SQL Server is second to none. I love me some open source, but the tooling we have available for Postgres and MySQL is just absolute crap compared to SSMS.

deleted 11y ago

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habanany 11y ago

🆒🆓🆕🆗🆙️