·
3 min read

SQL Server 2017 CTP 2.1 now available

Microsoft is excited to announce a new preview for the next version of SQL Server (SQL Server 2017). Community Technology Preview (CTP) 2.1 is available on both Windows and Linux. In this preview, we added manageability features to make it easier to configure SQL Server in Docker containers. We’re also introducing some new command line tools for managing SQL Server in our GitHub repo. And, there’s a preview of SQL Server Integration Services on Linux to try! You can try the SQL Server 2017 preview in your choice of development and test environments now: www.microsoft.com/sqlserver2017.

Key CTP 2.1 enhancements

The primary enhancement to SQL Server 2017 in this release is the ability to configure SQL Server configuration settings through environment variables passed in as parameters to docker run. This enables many of the SQL Server configuration scenarios in Docker containers such as setting the collation.

For additional detail on CTP 2.1, please visit What’s New in SQL Server 2017, Release Notes and Linux documentation.

SQL Server Integration Services on Linux

SQL Server Integration Services now supports Linux for the first time! Today we are also releasing a preview of SQL Server Integration Services for Ubuntu. The preview enables you to run SSIS packages on the Linux OS, extract data from and load it to most common sources and targets, and perform common transformations. It has a simple command line installation. For more information, see our SSIS blog.

Updated SQL Server Tooling

The latest release of SQL Server Management Studio is out! It features improvements to how it works with SQL Server on Linux so make sure you have the latest. In addition, we are excited to announce the public preview availability of two new command line tools for SQL Server:

  • The mssql-scripter tool enables developers, DBAs, and sysadmins to generate CREATE and INSERT T-SQL scripts for database objects in SQL Server, Azure SQL DB, and Azure SQL DW from the command line.
  • The DBFS tool enables DBAs and sysadmins to monitor SQL Server more easily by exposing live data from SQL Server Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) as virtual files in a virtual directory on Linux operating systems.

New lightweight installer for SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)

In CTP 2.1, we moved Reporting Services installation from the SQL Server installer to a separate installer. This is a packaging change, not a product change; access to SQL Server Reporting Services is still included with your SQL Server license. The new installation process keeps our packages lean and enables customers to deploy and update Reporting Services with zero impact on your SQL Server deployments and databases.

To learn more about what’s new in SQL Server 2017 Reporting Services preview, read our Reporting Services Release Notes. To download the latest preview in the new lightweight installer, go to https://aka.ms/ssrs2017download

To learn more about the recent announcement of a Power BI Report Server preview, which includes the capabilities of SQL Server 2017 Reporting Services and support for Power BI reports, you can read this blog article.

Get SQL Server 2017 CTP 2.1 today!

Try the preview of the SQL Server 2017 today! Get started with the preview of SQL Server with our updated developer tutorials that show you how to install and use SQL Server 2017 on macOS, Docker, Windows, and Linux and quickly build an app in a programming language of your choice.

Have questions? Join the discussion of SQL Server 2017 at MSDN. If you run into an issue or would like to make a suggestion, you can let us know through Connect. We look forward to hearing from you!

Avatar photo
SQL Server Team

Related Posts