A year and a half ago, Microsoft announced that it will be bringing SQL Server to Linux, offering the first public preview later on that year. At the company’s Ignite 2017 conference today, it announced that SQL Server 2017 is now generally available.
While a release candidate was made available a couple of months ago, generally available means that it’s officially ready to go, and it’s the first version of the database management solution that’s available on Windows Server, Linux, and Docker. In fact, Microsoft says that there have already been two million pulls on the SQL Server for Linux image on Docker Hub.
SQL Server 2017 adds support for Python- and R-based analytics, which means that you “can train advanced models easily with data inside SQL Server without having to move data.” With machine learning capabilities, Microsoft says that the software “delivers industry leading mission critical performance and security with everything built-in, including AI, now on the platform of your choice.”
Microsoft also says that it’s making it more cost-effective to run SQL Server and Windows Server on Azure, as customers can receive up to a 50% reduction in licensing costs by using Azure Hybrid Benefits. And the firm announced today that its Database Migration Service and SQL DV Managed Instance is now available, which make it easier for customers to move their on-premises database to the cloud, or more specifically, an Azure SQL database.
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