January 10, 2017 at 9:31 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Not Excited by Linux
January 11, 2017 at 12:01 am
Steve,
I remember hearing that when we entered as an as-yet unformed nation into the Revolutionary time frame that roughly the same percentage of people were against or indifferent. One third were actually wanting to emerge as an independent nation.
And, I also remember CP/M and the great freedom afforded by the segmenting of the operating system into the three parts (BDOS, CCP & BIOS for those who don't know). The best result being independence, though of a different sort. Not that we want to compare the tyranny of King George with IBM, DEC or Control Data. 😉
And, candidly, the whole Open Source movement has a huge component of individuals who are, ehrr.. 'independently minded' though sometimes that is taken to a decidedly unhealthy level. 🙂
MS SQL on *nix will succeed if it affords opportunity for any sort of clarity, efficiencies or makes technical sense. I have been somewhat pleasantly surprised that Microsoft has pivoted as strongly as they have towards open source. I have no illusions whatsoever about the notion that they, as a business, are attempting to keep themselves under the money spout but isn't that what we pretty much all do?
A lot of 'old timers' have done this for the joy of discovery but one still needs to pay their bills.
I hope it works and a lot of folks make a grand living as a result. I have spent most all of my career in the Intel/MSFT/DOS/Windows stack but I have always thought that *nix is a better operating system notwithstanding some of the goofiness I've seen. It is the progenitor to all of the above in so many ways.
January 11, 2017 at 12:26 am
SQL Server on Linux is a good starting point.
Where it will get interesting is if IS/RS/AS or equivalent features become available on Linux. BIML across platforms. That's potentially huge.
January 11, 2017 at 2:18 am
I'm a DevOps Engineer with experience of being a DBA (and still have a great interest in SQL Server) and I'm excited to see SQL Server on Linux as it should be easier to manage with configuration management tools like Puppet & Chef. I'm glad Microsoft are embracing other platforms with this and .NET Core as it will certainly encourage me to use it more, as I've always preferred SQL Server to MySQL or Postgres.
January 11, 2017 at 2:27 am
SQL Server running in a container in Linux is a curiosity. As a DBA, I see only limitations.
Senior management of a company decide things like whether the company is a Microsoft house or not. Licences and their cost is a problem for them and not us. If we need a new server, they find the money for the cost of all of the licences and whatnot, not us. There is little that I can do if SQL Server is out of support, needs to scale out or needs to be split for whatever reason. If the money and resources for the change are not provided, then it will continue to be problematic.
I ensure that the current installation is running as well as it can and manage it to the best of my ability.
SQL Server on Linux saves the company money spent on a Windows Server licence and will surely be welcomed by small businesses. It is also good news for the Linux community. It makes those who can secure and manage a Linux server more valuable.
It means that companies need to have people who can secure and manage a Linux server, and for many companies, this may well be a new cost and possibly more than the cost of the Windows Server licence.
January 11, 2017 at 3:46 am
I can easily see that a SQL Server DBA used to Windows has little interest in looking at SQL Server on Linux. Nothing is broken in Windows so why learn something new to fix a non-existent problem.
I can easily see that an IT Architect who is looking at costs and sees an opportunity to reduce the OS cost for SQL instances to near zero will be very very interested in looking at SQL Server on Linux.
Likewise, just about any organisation with a lot of their platform in the cloud is going to be interested in looking at SQL Server on Linux. Again, there will be a cost push towards this. At my old place, there were zero Linux instances before we moved to AWS in 2012, but last I heard over 25% of OS instances had moved to Linux.
Like it or not, SQL Server on Linux will become part of many DBA's skill set over the next 5 years, which means opportunities to change job for more pay for the people who get skilled first.
Original author: https://github.com/SQL-FineBuild/Common/wiki/ 1-click install and best practice configuration of SQL Server 2019, 2017 2016, 2014, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005.
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January 11, 2017 at 3:49 am
I have seen a lot of clients in the Enterprise space want to move to Linux in order to reduce costs.
Some want to stick with MS SQL Server but either couldn't go to Linux or had to drop SQL Server too. Now they don't have to go with either option.
Some even want to move from Oracle to reduce costs two and generally fall into one of two camps; either they want to go for a free (read as expensive Enterprise Edition support contract) database or a less expensive competitor. MS SQL Server has now become a "less expensive competitor".
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
January 11, 2017 at 5:00 am
I am excited by Linux, I'm excited about SQL Server, but not by SQL Server on Linux. I make a very good living supporting SQL Server, and I enjoy my job. The new features in recent releases make this a good time to start getting into technologies like R and PowerBI. Linux on the desktop is getting easier to use every month, I now use it nearly exclusively at home, I am excited that it is more secure and supports full disk encryption to make my portable machines more secure. But SQL Server on Linux isn't what you think, it is not a native port of the code. It is the classic Windows binaries running on top of an integration layer, and that is likely to slow it down, as well as introduce some frankly bizarre behaviour, such as seeing drive letters in your save paths which is a concept that just doesn't exist in the *ux world.
Then there is the licencing, I know that this is just a first cut and that other features will be added later, but who wants to pay full price per processor core for just the DBEngine when the same money on windows will get you SSAS, SSIS, SSRS, SSQS and a host of other features that are lacking? If you want these you will still need another windows server, even if less powerful, that is fully licenced. So unless you have the finances for a fully scaled out deployment it doesn't seem to make economical sense either.
I'll defer judgement until the official first version appears and see if any of these issues have been resolved, but I wouldn't recommend SQL Server on Linux to anyone in the current state.
January 11, 2017 at 5:30 am
I'm actually not surprised that those that responded to the poll aren't excited by SQL Server on Linux. Most of the users on SSC have probably been in bed with Windows hosting their SQL Server for some time, and therefore aren't interested, or don't like, the idea of change. Especially if they have little or no experience with Linux.
The people I expect to be more excited are those who are already using Linux and want to bring SQL Server into their environment and have always avoided Windows, or at least as much as possible. These people now have a new option, which that can take into consideration in the future.
I'll admit I'm excited for it, but I use Linux at home (as well as Windows) where as work runs off Windows. As a result there's little to no likelyhood of us using SQL Server on Linux in the office. There's a lot less knowledge of the OS here, and so support would be much more limited. I'll admit, I would be far from happy for our business to turn around and say they want SQL Server on Linux as it'll save them a few bob on the Windows licence, but as we have no one trained on Linux I've go to set it all up as I have "experience" (yeah, in home computing!).
This is something to be excited for, but I don't think it's something the SSC community is or will be about. You're asking the wrong people 😉
Thom~
Excuse my typos and sometimes awful grammar. My fingers work faster than my brain does.
Larnu.uk
January 11, 2017 at 6:01 am
As a cross platform jack-of-all-trades, I'm intrigued by SQL Server on Linux. Porting SQL Server, .NET and other development bits to Linux shows that Microsoft is engaged with developers.
But I'm not sure it's more than a stunt or a lever to use against the Windows OS team at Redmond...
January 11, 2017 at 6:28 am
Thom A (1/11/2017)
Most of the users on SSC have probably been in bed with Windows hosting their SQL Server for some time, and therefore aren't interested, or don't like, the idea of change. Especially if they have little or no experience with Linux.
I think you may be doing the DBA community a mis-service.
From what I can see of my peers lack of interest was never the issue.
Recognising a database migration as a threat to the data was more likely the issue.
I have been involved with a number of database migrations between platforms. Without exception they have been high stress and painful. The Kimball University guys talk about the "big gulp". This is the inevitable slow progress at the beginning of a migration. You have users of the new system screaming for 100% service at the same time as keeping the source system running at 100% at the same time as devoting extra time to fixing inevitable migration issues and all to meet a deadline that demonstrates the perpetual optimism of the inexperienced.
A platform migration inevitably means that you spend time learning how to make the platform work rather than actually using the platform to do stuff. People underestimate the amount of time and effort that is required to attain 100% service in a new platform. I'd say that it would take a good 18-24 months to get everything up and running at full strength. In some cases much longer
January 11, 2017 at 6:28 am
Gary Varga (1/11/2017)
I have seen a lot of clients in the Enterprise space want to move to Linux in order to reduce costs.Some want to stick with MS SQL Server but either couldn't go to Linux or had to drop SQL Server too. Now they don't have to go with either option.
Some even want to move from Oracle to reduce costs two and generally fall into one of two camps; either they want to go for a free (read as expensive Enterprise Edition support contract) database or a less expensive competitor. MS SQL Server has now become a "less expensive competitor".
I agree with your point about reducing costs. Perhaps MS should think about that.
January 11, 2017 at 6:50 am
Thom A (1/11/2017)
I'm actually not surprised that those that responded to the poll aren't excited by SQL Server on Linux. Most of the users on SSC have probably been in bed with Windows hosting their SQL Server for some time, and therefore aren't interested, or don't like, the idea of change. Especially if they have little or no experience with Linux.The people I expect to be more excited are those who are already using Linux and want to bring SQL Server into their environment and have always avoided Windows, or at least as much as possible. These people now have a new option, which that can take into consideration in the future.
You may not be interested in change, but change is interested in you!
There's more than a few curious geeky primates here that do have experience and interest in Linux. The disconnect is that Linux is seen as a Open and mostly "free" platform running mostly "free" software. And actual production licenses for SQL Server are anything but free. As good as the Linux platform is, there are some cases where non-free software is superior. Office, AutoCAD and SQL Server are three that come to mind.
(On a personal note I don't have a single paid application on my home Linux machines, but I'm not doing enterprise database development on them either. Small databases in SQLite and PostgreSQL notwithstanding...)
The second issue is the rest of the SQL Server suite, tools and utilities is still Windows bound. If I can afford the license to run SQL Server in production, I probably can afford the Windows licenses too.
Although it's a good technical achievement, I'm not sure what the business case for SQL Server on Linux is, outside a large customer(s) insisting that it run on Linux. Or as leverage against the WinOS group in Redmond.
January 11, 2017 at 6:55 am
.. Certainly I expect lots of (free) Express editions installed by developers, which will allow them to gain experience, and perhaps be more comfortable in the future with SQL Server as a data platform. ..
SQL Server 2016 Express Edition running on Linux will definitely the gateway drug for many Oracle, MySQL, and DB2 users.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
January 11, 2017 at 7:00 am
chrisn-585491 (1/11/2017)
Although it's a good technical achievement, I'm not sure what the business case for SQL Server on Linux is, outside a large customer(s) insisting that it run on Linux.
Oracle customers.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
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