SQL Server Beta For Windows Server Containers Terminated 'With Immediate Effect' (theregister.com) 34
Microsoft has suspended its SQL Server on Windows Container beta "with immediate effect." The Register reports: The statement yesterday (early on a US public holiday) by Microsoft senior program manager Amit Khandelwal said: "Due to the existing ecosystem challenges and usage patterns we have decided to suspend the SQL Server on Windows Containers beta program for foreseeable future. Should the circumstances change, we will revisit the decision at appropriate time." Ecosystem challenges? Microsoft introduced Windows Server Containers in Windows Server 2016, enlisting the support of Docker so that developers could easily deploy containerised Windows applications in a similar manner to Linux. Windows containers are important to the company, used in its Application Guard security feature, which opens untrusted websites and Office documents in an isolated Hyper-V container. Containers were a key component of the abandoned Windows 10X.
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The beta program for SQL Server on Windows containers began in 2017, said [Microsoft senior program manager Amit Khandelwal], which is a while back, and the fact that it has not hit general availability probably comes as no surprise to its relatively few users. That said, Microsoft has also decided to delete the Windows SQL Server images in the Docker Hub repository immediately, which did not go down well. "Could you please not delete those repos and images? That is going to break stuff. Folks have builds that depend on these images. At least give some warning rather than 'immediate effect,'" pleaded developer David Gardiner. Khandelwal replied saying that these container images were now three years old and "we do want any new users and customers downloading it." Since it was a beta, not supported in production, customers used it at their own risk.
In July 2019, Microsoft introduced an Early Adopters Program for SQL Server 2019 on Windows containers, the link for which leads appropriately to "Error 403 -- this web app is stopped." SQL Server running directly on Windows or in a Windows VM remains, of course, in rude health. Microsoft also recently introduced a preview of SQL Server for Azure Arc, supporting both Windows and Linux instances.
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The beta program for SQL Server on Windows containers began in 2017, said [Microsoft senior program manager Amit Khandelwal], which is a while back, and the fact that it has not hit general availability probably comes as no surprise to its relatively few users. That said, Microsoft has also decided to delete the Windows SQL Server images in the Docker Hub repository immediately, which did not go down well. "Could you please not delete those repos and images? That is going to break stuff. Folks have builds that depend on these images. At least give some warning rather than 'immediate effect,'" pleaded developer David Gardiner. Khandelwal replied saying that these container images were now three years old and "we do want any new users and customers downloading it." Since it was a beta, not supported in production, customers used it at their own risk.
In July 2019, Microsoft introduced an Early Adopters Program for SQL Server 2019 on Windows containers, the link for which leads appropriately to "Error 403 -- this web app is stopped." SQL Server running directly on Windows or in a Windows VM remains, of course, in rude health. Microsoft also recently introduced a preview of SQL Server for Azure Arc, supporting both Windows and Linux instances.
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sql server.
it is very american to support our russian hacker economy with fine windows products.
Writing was on the wall (Score:5, Insightful)
Based on our experience with Docker in Azure over the last two years, Microsoft has been losing interest in Docker. Most of their Docker Azure stuff never left preview, didn't work particularly well when you tried anything other than a bog standard configuration, and you got almost zero visibility into what was going on in your containers if they failed to start up properly. It looks like they are betting on Kubernetes instead.
Re:Writing was on the wall (Score:4, Insightful)
??? Kubernetes isn't a replacement for Docker or any other container system.
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Fair enough, you are right, and I wasn't clear enough in my post. But wherever Microsoft is going with its strategy, it seems to be putting distance between itself and Docker.
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Fair enough.
Assuming Kubernetes abstracts the actual container system, it could be any container system under the hood, if suitable images exist.
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just wait for server to need directx video and tmp (Score:1)
just wait for server to need directx video cards and tmp chips like windows 11.
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One of these [youtu.be] in the rack with some video cards. Doing some VFIO [reddit.com] and I could see a family gaming off it.
but I want it on VM with live migration! (Score:2)
but I want it on VM with live migration!
Microsoft must really see Google as a threat (Score:5, Interesting)
It was only a matter of time before Microsoft started emulating Google in keeping products in beta for far longer than is reasonable, and killing them off when they had built a decent userbase despite their beta status.
Re: Microsoft must really see Google as a threat (Score:4, Interesting)
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Except Microsoft, to their credit, kept most of the stuff they killed to few user previews. So it wouldn't have had a major user base, and even the stuff in wider trials typically requires a validated sign up.
That doesn't mean they haven't killed things with lots of users - they have, though
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What does "rude health" mean? (Score:2)
Are server side commercial developers stupid? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do these people not even do a simple risk assessment - ie, THINK about it; let alone develop mitigation strategies - ie, NOT depend on it?
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Do these people not even do a simple risk assessment
When uppers tell you that you need to have a project from concept to full roll out in a single month, the "risk assessment" phase is about one hour long on a Thursday. So no, none of these places are doing that because timelines in a lot of Fortune 500 companies are not even remotely realistic and dev management as of late has a spine similar to undersea sponges.
let alone develop mitigation strategies
Bawahahahahahahahaha!!! I mean Equifax, a company with an unparalleled amount of PPI, couldn't be troubled to do a fucking patching of a Tomcat d
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the "risk assessment" phase is about one hour long on a Thursday.
And they can't, in ONE HOUR, come to the conclusion that you shouldn't rely on community supported, or beta programs?
Bawahahahahahahahaha!!!
Is "don't use it" so hard of a mitigation strategy? Is "use the paid supported/contracted version" so hard of a mitigation strategy?
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Sometimes i get the feeling some folks here started work at a fortune500 or government department straight out of uni and never left.
Most of us live in worlds where bosses pay lip service at best and budget money never when it comes to risk mitigation, or planning, or giving us the resources to implement proper testing & CI. Or we have clients that want the project to go from conception to delivery in 2 weeks and we just gaffa tape the giant gaping holes so nobody sees them and hope for the best.
Its shi
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only a matter of time (Score:5, Insightful)
The number of people running Windows containers in production has to be tiny. I don't know anyone doing that. It's all Linux containers as far as the eye can see.
Why would you even run a Windows container? The only thing your are going to put into a container anyway is dotnet apps and Linux is already doing that.
Re: only a matter of time (Score:2)
We use them for builds via on-prem Gitlab, mostly because it simplifies and streamlines things a lot when you have multiple environments. Docker on Windows, even with Windows containers, sucks though: itâ(TM)s fragile, unreliable and the performance is atrocious.
But containers aren't virtualization (Score:2)
But containers aren't virtualization--they're chroot jails. On Windows what they call "containers" use Hyper-V. Virtual machines aren't containers!
What am I missing?
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Time to upgrade to PostgreSQL! (Score:2)
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Several of the things you listed are far superior to Microsoft's crap SQL server. Postgresql, DB2, Oracle definitely.
Mysql is a toy that will lose your data since last backup, don't use that.
See, that wasn't hard and plenty of other superior alternatives exist.
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Several of the things you listed are far superior to Microsoft's crap SQL server. Postgresql, DB2, Oracle definitely.
Mysql is a toy that will lose your data since last backup, don't use that.
See, that wasn't hard and plenty of other superior alternatives exist.
While I prefer PostgresSQL, SQL Server is actually pretty decent. Oracle, OTOH, is something you really should do everything possible to avoid using. Not necessarily because of the database - it does what it should - but because of the company behind it. Oracle is the pinnacle of screwing its customers [palisadecompliance.com].
I'm also remembering back to a summer in the 90s when I was working on code that downloaded newspaper pages from the company's internal publishing solution to put it on a web server for public consumption.
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MS SQL server has had problem for decades of freezing or locking up under certain conditions, and in the present any windows box is a ripe target for ransomware or malware, the MS SQL Server will be guaranteed victim while dbms that can run on other OS will be unscathed. Yes, I've seen this firsthand.
Microsoft products, just say no and have a reliable system. (in Linux land, don't run the crap stack, LAMP)
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Why is anyone using SQL server any longer?
What is the alternative to SQL Server? MySQL? Postgres? DB2? Sybase? Oracle? Name something better.. you can't because it doesn't exist.
Insert "Don't know if Poe's Law or just insane" meme here.