

Porting Microsoft SQL Server to Linux - slackgentoo
http://hal2020.com/2011/07/27/porting-microsoft-sql-server-to-linux/

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slackgentoo
I just want to add the author of the article, i.e. Hal Berenson, is one of the
key architect behind SQL Server 7.0 which is a rewrite from the legacy Sybase
code. More information can be found at:
[http://www.microsoft.com/about/technicalrecognition/SQL-
Serv...](http://www.microsoft.com/about/technicalrecognition/SQL-
Server-7-Team.aspx)

------
RyanMcGreal
> What is the negative business impact on with entire Windows platform
> associated with making a key member of the server product family available
> on nix?

I suspect this is close to the heart of the matter. Building a flagship
application for a competing OS hurts Microsoft's interest as an OS vendor.
Without a _really_ compelling business reason to take on the technical hassle
of porting, this danger becomes a deal-breaker.

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JunkDNA
This was really fascinating. It just goes to show you that there is a whole
lot more than just code with something like this. My gut tells me that a unix
SQLServer would have been a the poor stepchild of the family if they had gone
this route. That said, it would be very nice if MS made genuine, supported
drivers for SQLServer on unix. I know about FreeTDS, but that just doesn't cut
it for something mission critical.

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Maro
This is a great cost-benefit analysis that shows that it wasn't a
technical/software/programming question.

~~~
Someone
I think it is nice, but what surprised me was that There was no notion of the
impact on testing.

If I were to buy a database server for Unix, I would expect that it would have
been tested on that platform (including hard-to-test things such as power
failures at inconvenient times, running out of disk space, rinning out of
swap, less common filesystems, etc). I guess a minimal test would eat man-
years.

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zdw
The discussion of admin tools is somewhat interesting - SQL Server's have been
abysmal until recently. Seriously, if they couldn't have ported it to unix, at
least offering some decent admin tools would have been nice.

I had a recent job where a very old NT4 box with SQL Server 6.5 was still
installed. Getting the data off it to a modern platform involved the following
upgrade version chaining.

6.5 -> 2000 -> 2005 32-bit -> 2005 64-bit -> 2008 R2.

So, 5 conversions, as there wasn't a simple "dump to text" tool. The silly
thing is that database was under 100MB in size. (we did try dumping it into
Access but certain saved procedures and other stuff in the DB wouldn't come
over)

Then, after all that trouble, we realized that the client program was 16-bit,
so they have to do a rewrite to run on x64 platforms (or run VM's, great...).
And nobody has the code as the guy who wrote it fell off the planet.

~~~
slackgentoo
Have you tried 'bcp'?

