New installation possibilities

With the release of SQL Server 2017, administrators are very excited about the following new installation scenarios:

• SQL Server on Linux
• SQL Server in a container

The SQL Server on Linux installation scenario was a big highlight when SQL Server 2017 was announced for the first time. The installation process is managed via the command prompt, from downloading the SQL Server installer to starting the newly installed instance. Access to the instance is done by the sqlcmd command line almost in the same way as on Windows. Right now, SQL Server DE, as well as SSRS and SSIS services, support running on Linux.

Container is quite a new term supported by Microsoft. We can think about containers as lightweight virtual machines with less isolation of processes (for example, service running in a container can be stopped from the host operating system). Another approach of container is to create a sandbox for an isolated amount of system resources. Container installation of SQL Server is done via command prompt.

When SQL Server is installed on Linux or in some container, it's accessed by clients in exactly the same way as any other instance of SQL Server. More detailed information about these new installation scenarios is beyond the scope of this book.