The library OS then executes the application, handles memory management and other vital functions, and integrates with the underlying operating system.Ībout two years ago, the SQL Server team decided to make this the core of its Linux efforts. The idea here was basically to build better and more secure virtual machines.
MICROSOFT TO DO LINUX WINDOWS
Drawbridge was a research project that launched back in 2011 which basically provided a container with a small API surface and a basic version of Windows configured to efficiently run the application in the container. The team found its answer in a project that already existed at Microsoft: Drawbridge.
![microsoft to do linux microsoft to do linux](https://www.shorelinuxsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/linux-vs-windows-view.png)
MICROSOFT TO DO LINUX FULL
But with that decision made, the team now faced a daunting task, though: how do you port the tens of millions of lines of SQL Server’s code to Linux? Kumar didn’t want to make any compromise in functionality either, so it either had to be the full core of SQL Server or nothing at all (and for now, that excludes the graphical user interfaces and tools the company offers on Windows). Sitting over a bowl of pho at a Vietnamese restaurant in Redmond, the team made the final decision to go ahead with the project. It was really surprising to see how quickly the decisions got made,” Kumar said.
![microsoft to do linux microsoft to do linux](https://net2.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/word-image-2.jpeg)
“It wasn’t something considered to be a strategic way for the business.” But three years ago - now with Satya Nadella at the top of the company - the team decided to pitch this idea again.”The biggest surprising part was that we were expecting a whole lot of back and forth. “We had a couple of discussions in the past where it wasn’t approved,” he told me. If you want to run Linux and use a proprietary relational database with full enterprise support, you aren’t exactly spoiled for choice, after all.Īs Kumar told me, this wasn’t the first time his team looked at Linux support. Kumar also noted that many enterprises were looking for an alternative to Oracle’s database products. “We were forcing customers to use Windows as their platform of choice.” In another incarnation of Microsoft, that probably would’ve been seen as something positive, but the company’s strategy today is quite different.
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“Talking to enterprises, it became clear that doing this was necessary,” Kumar said. For many of these businesses, not being able to run their database of choice on Linux became a friction point. But at the same time, they were also working in mixed environments that included both Windows Server and Linux. Kumar, who has been at Microsoft for more than 18 years, noted that his team noticed many enterprises were starting to use SQL Server for their mission-critical workloads.
MICROSOFT TO DO LINUX SOFTWARE
And while there are plenty of new features and speed improvements in this new version, the fact that SQL Server 2017 supports Linux remains one of the most interesting aspects of this release.Īhead of today’s announcement, I talked to Rohan Kumar, the general manager of Microsoft’s Database Systems group, to get a bit more info about the history of this project and how his team managed to bring an extremely complex piece of software like SQL Server to Linux. The Docker container alone has already seen more than 1 million pulls, so there can be no doubt that there is a lot of interest in this new version.
![microsoft to do linux microsoft to do linux](https://www.lffl.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/microsoft-windows-linux.jpg)
The company today launched the first release candidate of SQL Server 2017, which will be the first version to run on Windows, Linux and in Docker containers. Over the course of the last year, Microsoft’s support for Linux (and open source in general), has come into clearer focus and the company’s mission now seems to be all about bringing its tools to wherever its users are. Back in 2016, when Microsoft announced that SQL Server would soon run on Linux, the news came as a major surprise to users and pundits alike.