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Welcome to the exciting new journey of our old friend in a new environment. Yes, we are talking about one of the best database platforms in the world. SQL Server is well known in the domain of the Windows operating system, whether we speak of small, medium, or enterprise-size businesses. Cloud computing pushes those limits even further in the directions of big data analytics and data science. SQL Server has it all.

Linux, or to be precise GNU/Linux, is one of the best alternatives to Windows and, in many cases, it is the first choice of environment for daily tasks such as system administration, running different kinds of services, or just a tool for desktop application. Linux, which is the actual name for a kernel, was originally developed in 1991 by Linus Torvalds as his response to the MINIX operating system, which was limited to educational use. It was quickly recognized by the open source community, adopted, and packaged in many distributions. It's fascinating how large that number is. I believe that you've heard or read at least one name in the following list (the list is arranged by date (1993 - 2013)): Debian, Slackware, SUSE Linux, Red Hat Linux, CentOS, Fedora, Ubuntu, Tails, Kali Linux, and many more. Today, GNU/Linux does not hold a large chunk of the desktop operating system market. That fact is changing and many people, organizations, businesses, and even states are embracing this technology. But, if we talk about the server market, the situation is quite the opposite. Linux is holding a large share of the market.

However, Linux territory was a no-go for Microsoft products for a long time to be precise, from the beginning. Now, Microsoft loves Linux. A couple of years ago, this sentence would've sounded like a bad science fiction scenario. Fortunately, Microsoft has changed and become friendly to open source and free software philosophies. One of the reasons for this 180 degree change is cloud computing. New paradigms simply don't push old platform limitations to the background. Everything is a service now and it is not important where that service (Windows/Linux/Unix) is. The fact that Microsoft is pushing its core product on a couple of major Linux distributions speaks for itself.

However, one segment of the database ecosystem was out of Microsoft's reach. Linux was mostly reserved for open source representatives such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MariaDB, or proprietary ones such as IBM's DB2 and Oracle. But now it is time to change those facts. We can say that Microsoft is officially offering their data platform flagship as options and choice for database professionals in the Linux world. There are varied kinds of responses to this subject, from totally negative to positive comments. My opinion is that this is good thing. SQL Server is one of the best database environments; let's give them a chance to prove it on the ground. The Linux ecosystem has become richer and end users have more choices to pick the right solution for their needs.

This is not a book about Linux distributions, nor is it about Linux internals. Here, you will not find any Linux command line reference, but you will find a lot of useful information on how to deal with SQL Server on Linux.

This chapter targets DBAs, developers, and everyone else from the Windows playground. If you are from this group of users and you want to try out SQL Server in Linux land but don't know how to start, this is the chapter for you. If you are a Linux user with experience in your favorite distribution or different kinds of distributions, you can skip this chapter and go straight to the installation part.

In this chapter we will cover the following topics:

Supported Linux distributions
Installation of Linux operating system

Key benefits

Design and administer your SQL Server solution on the open source Linux platform

Install, configure, and fine-tune your database application for maximum performance

An easy-to-follow guide teaching you how to implement various SQL Server CTP 2.x offerings on Linux—from installation to administration

Description

Microsoft's launch of SQL Server on Linux has made SQL Server a truly versatile platform across different operating systems and data-types, both on-premise and on-cloud. This book is your handy guide to setting up and implementing your SQL Server solution on the open source Linux platform. You will start by understanding how SQL Server can be installed on supported and unsupported Linux distributions. Then you will brush up your SQL Server skills by creating and querying database objects and implementing basic administration tasks to support business continuity, including security and performance optimization. This book will also take you beyond the basics and highlight some advanced topics such as in-memory OLTP and temporal tables. By the end of this book, you will be able to recognize and utilize the full potential of setting up an efficient SQL Server database solution in your Linux environment.

Who is this book for?

This book is for the Linux users who want to learn SQL Server on their favorite Linux distributions. It is not important if you are experienced database user or a beginner as we are starting from scratch. However, it is recommended that you have basic knowledge about relational models. More advanced readers can pick the chapters of their interest and study specific topics immediately. Users from Windows platform can also benefit from this book to expand their frontiers and become equally efficient on both platforms.

What you will learn

Install and set up SQL Server CTP 2.x on Linux

Create and work with database objects using SQL Server on Linux

Configure and administer SQL Server on Linux-based systems

Create and restore database back-ups

Protect sensitive data using the built-in cryptographic features

Optimize query execution using indexes

Improve query execution time by more than 10x using in-memory OLTP

Track row-versioning using temporal tables

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