26 ms·

Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Express

154 points by itaysk 10y ago

ashtavakra 10y ago
All this is nice, but once the SQL Server database crosses a certain size, there are things one needs to do like separating transaction logs, data files, tempdb files to separate disks for acceptable performance. I am not sure how that will work with SQL Server inside a container.
- karma_fountain 10y ago
  Good for development environments though. Probably don't want to be running SQL Express for large databases anyway.
  - NKCSS 10y ago
    It's limited to 10GB; so even if you wanted to, it won't :)
    - windowsworkstoo 10y ago
      Trivial to sub the express edition for developer edition and you are away
      - NKCSS 10y ago
        You know that's not allowed, right? Dev can only be used locally on your own machine, never to run anything other people can access.
        windowsworkstoo 10y ago
        Yes, why else would you be running SQL in a container for if not for dev....10GB is fuck all, and it's nice having multiple versions of a large test (or sanitized prod) backup available locally, which can easily be greater than 10GB
        partisan 10y ago
        "fuck all" - Absolutely nothing at all, the most extreme degree of nothing.
- jdoliner 10y ago
  If you schedule it on Kubernetes as a pet set you could give each container a consistent virtual disk from your cloud provider. Of course... your cloud provider also has SQL as a service, so that's probably a cheaper option.
- fleitz 10y ago
  The purpose of containers is that computers are now large enough that one computer can do the job of many previously smaller computers. One your workload exceeds that of a normal run of the mill server containers are no longer a good idea. So basically once you start needing to do that which is mostly pointless now anyway with SSDs that would about the time when containers would also be ill suited to your workload. Also, if you're running docker in prod, have fun :)
- mattmanser 10y ago
  You can only have a maximum 10 gb database on SQL Express, no point doing any of those things with that.
  - deviate_X 10y ago
    I think 10gb is quite a lot of data for any database system, well at least it used to be!
    - mattmanser 10y ago
      Even a one man band can easily afford a dedicated server to keep an entire 10Gb db in memory at all times.
cm2187 10y ago
What's the benefit over giving a VM to a developer? What does a developer gets from setting up a SQL Server in a container that he doesn't get from setting a SQL server in a VM?
- windowsworkstoo 10y ago
  Multiple copies of a large base db, for free...you only pay for the data when the differences start to flow in.
  - cm2187 10y ago
    But isn't it because of the drive level deduplication of data? Surely this is not docket specific?
    - windowsworkstoo 10y ago
      I don't understand your question. My point is you can bake an image with the db of your choice, lets say that comes in at 50Gb. You can then run multiple instance of that image, for only 50Gb plus watever data differences are, as opposed to having to copy the full image and launch X vms (this is a scenario i am trying now, the size is much greater though, so it makes sense) I dont know of any hypervisors that let you do multiple instance of the same vm using diff disks?
      - cm2187 10y ago
        You can do that at the storage server level: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831602(v=ws.11).aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831602(v=ws.11...
        windowsworkstoo 10y ago
        Right didnt know that had found its way into standard Windows (as opposed to being a storage sapces feature or some such). In any case, its not really equivalent though, since it is only run periodically. My use case is specifically dev focused, wheras i would certainly consider data dedup on something less ephemeral
sztwiorok 10y ago
Docker is the best thing since sliced bread! From their latest newsletters it appears that they intensified cooperation with MS. Hope it does a good turn!
- tracker1 10y ago
  I'd love to see MS's efforts on the linux subsystem bake to a point where Window's container system can support linux containers, which will bring a MUCH more rich ecosystem of possibilities.
andrewchambers 10y ago
Docker on windows complicates things prematurely. So many moving parts to configure. In fact, i think the same thing about docker to begin with, but if i was using docker, i would just use linux.
slmyers 10y ago
Why would I use this (windows server 2k16 + Microsoft SQL) vs a linux image + Postgres? Does anyone have any insight in this comparison? It seems to me that this stack is expensive and will likely have less documentation, but I could be wrong on this and there may be very good benefits. Comments appreciated.
- catmanjan 10y ago
  Useful for developers targeting organisations on Microsoft stacks
- mvitorino 10y ago
  Because very often it's not up to the developer/architect to pick the technology to work with. Also what seems expensive to you, very often is not so for the customer.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    At the place I work SQL with CALS and software assurance runs 300k. In a free market, I expect that soon people will build solutions on open source alternatives and undercut the competition dramatically.
    - mvitorino 10y ago
      Sure. But open source business models are not trivial to succeed or scale. RethinkDB is shutting down and MySQL ended up in Oracle's hands. Postgres is a bit unique, but still lacks good and friendly developer and management tools and better support from cloud providers.
    - oldprogrammer2 10y ago
      As a counterpoint, we have a 2008 R2 instance that cost us about $13K back in 2011. Granted, it's a two processor, standard edition license, so we recently upgraded to SSD's and upgraded to higher core processors. Also, the Windows Server license was about $800, I believe. No CALs required for either Windows or SQL Server in this situation.
serguzest 10y ago
T-SQL is the poorest rdbms language ever existed. Microsoft didn't bother to implement very simple string, datetime functions for 15 years where Postgresql is very rich in that department. So please don't speak about how microsoft tooling is rich.
- devopsproject 10y ago
  SQL Server Management Studio is light years ahead of any pgsql management tool
  - trurtyuy889 10y ago
    The official pg client, psql, is light years ahead of SQL Server Management "Studio".
    - devopsproject 10y ago
      We can rehash all the same old arguments from the 90s and 00s about command line vs gui but that would not be productive. If you want to interact with mssql using the command line, use sqlcmd
    - Jean-Philipe 10y ago
      or pgcli for that matter
      - devopsproject 10y ago
        The editor in SSMS can do everything pgcli can do and more.
- blahi 10y ago
  ruh-roh, master-master replication, multithreaded eexecution, vacuuming tables, in-memory OLTP. Yes postgres is cutting edge and without blame. Stay away from the evil SQL Server, nothing to be gained there.
scotty79 10y ago
Is express still limited to 10gb databases?

154 points by itaysk 10y ago

All this is nice, but once the SQL Server database crosses a certain size, there are things one needs to do like separating transaction logs, data files, tempdb files to separate disks for acceptable performance. I am not sure how that will work with SQL Server inside a container.

karma_fountain 10y ago
Good for development environments though. Probably don't want to be running SQL Express for large databases anyway.
- NKCSS 10y ago
  It's limited to 10GB; so even if you wanted to, it won't :)
  - windowsworkstoo 10y ago
    Trivial to sub the express edition for developer edition and you are away
    - NKCSS 10y ago
      You know that's not allowed, right? Dev can only be used locally on your own machine, never to run anything other people can access.
      - windowsworkstoo 10y ago
        Yes, why else would you be running SQL in a container for if not for dev....10GB is fuck all, and it's nice having multiple versions of a large test (or sanitized prod) backup available locally, which can easily be greater than 10GB
        partisan 10y ago
        "fuck all" - Absolutely nothing at all, the most extreme degree of nothing.
jdoliner 10y ago
If you schedule it on Kubernetes as a pet set you could give each container a consistent virtual disk from your cloud provider. Of course... your cloud provider also has SQL as a service, so that's probably a cheaper option.
fleitz 10y ago
The purpose of containers is that computers are now large enough that one computer can do the job of many previously smaller computers. One your workload exceeds that of a normal run of the mill server containers are no longer a good idea. So basically once you start needing to do that which is mostly pointless now anyway with SSDs that would about the time when containers would also be ill suited to your workload. Also, if you're running docker in prod, have fun :)
mattmanser 10y ago
You can only have a maximum 10 gb database on SQL Express, no point doing any of those things with that.
- deviate_X 10y ago
  I think 10gb is quite a lot of data for any database system, well at least it used to be!
  - mattmanser 10y ago
    Even a one man band can easily afford a dedicated server to keep an entire 10Gb db in memory at all times.

cm2187 10y ago

What's the benefit over giving a VM to a developer? What does a developer gets from setting up a SQL Server in a container that he doesn't get from setting a SQL server in a VM?

windowsworkstoo 10y ago
Multiple copies of a large base db, for free...you only pay for the data when the differences start to flow in.
- cm2187 10y ago
  But isn't it because of the drive level deduplication of data? Surely this is not docket specific?
  - windowsworkstoo 10y ago
    I don't understand your question. My point is you can bake an image with the db of your choice, lets say that comes in at 50Gb. You can then run multiple instance of that image, for only 50Gb plus watever data differences are, as opposed to having to copy the full image and launch X vms (this is a scenario i am trying now, the size is much greater though, so it makes sense) I dont know of any hypervisors that let you do multiple instance of the same vm using diff disks?
    - cm2187 10y ago
      You can do that at the storage server level: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831602(v=ws.11).aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831602(v=ws.11...
      - windowsworkstoo 10y ago
        Right didnt know that had found its way into standard Windows (as opposed to being a storage sapces feature or some such). In any case, its not really equivalent though, since it is only run periodically. My use case is specifically dev focused, wheras i would certainly consider data dedup on something less ephemeral

sztwiorok 10y ago

Docker is the best thing since sliced bread! From their latest newsletters it appears that they intensified cooperation with MS. Hope it does a good turn!

tracker1 10y ago
I'd love to see MS's efforts on the linux subsystem bake to a point where Window's container system can support linux containers, which will bring a MUCH more rich ecosystem of possibilities.

andrewchambers 10y ago

Docker on windows complicates things prematurely. So many moving parts to configure. In fact, i think the same thing about docker to begin with, but if i was using docker, i would just use linux.

slmyers 10y ago

Why would I use this (windows server 2k16 + Microsoft SQL) vs a linux image + Postgres? Does anyone have any insight in this comparison? It seems to me that this stack is expensive and will likely have less documentation, but I could be wrong on this and there may be very good benefits. Comments appreciated.

catmanjan 10y ago
Useful for developers targeting organisations on Microsoft stacks
mvitorino 10y ago
Because very often it's not up to the developer/architect to pick the technology to work with. Also what seems expensive to you, very often is not so for the customer.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  At the place I work SQL with CALS and software assurance runs 300k. In a free market, I expect that soon people will build solutions on open source alternatives and undercut the competition dramatically.
  - mvitorino 10y ago
    Sure. But open source business models are not trivial to succeed or scale. RethinkDB is shutting down and MySQL ended up in Oracle's hands. Postgres is a bit unique, but still lacks good and friendly developer and management tools and better support from cloud providers.
  - oldprogrammer2 10y ago
    As a counterpoint, we have a 2008 R2 instance that cost us about $13K back in 2011. Granted, it's a two processor, standard edition license, so we recently upgraded to SSD's and upgraded to higher core processors. Also, the Windows Server license was about $800, I believe. No CALs required for either Windows or SQL Server in this situation.

serguzest 10y ago

T-SQL is the poorest rdbms language ever existed. Microsoft didn't bother to implement very simple string, datetime functions for 15 years where Postgresql is very rich in that department. So please don't speak about how microsoft tooling is rich.

devopsproject 10y ago
SQL Server Management Studio is light years ahead of any pgsql management tool
- trurtyuy889 10y ago
  The official pg client, psql, is light years ahead of SQL Server Management "Studio".
  - devopsproject 10y ago
    We can rehash all the same old arguments from the 90s and 00s about command line vs gui but that would not be productive. If you want to interact with mssql using the command line, use sqlcmd
  - Jean-Philipe 10y ago
    or pgcli for that matter
    - devopsproject 10y ago
      The editor in SSMS can do everything pgcli can do and more.
blahi 10y ago
ruh-roh, master-master replication, multithreaded eexecution, vacuuming tables, in-memory OLTP. Yes postgres is cutting edge and without blame. Stay away from the evil SQL Server, nothing to be gained there.

scotty79 10y ago

Is express still limited to 10gb databases?