In 2017, Microsoft announced SQL Server in the Windows Containers Beta program, allowing developers to connect to SQL Server instances from within the same container or outside of it. Benefits included ease of setup, maximizing instance density for development and testing purposes, and isolating and managing applications in one shared environment.
Today, Microsoft announced that it is suspending the program.
In a short suspension In its blog, Microsoft states that the SQL Server program in Windows Containers Beta has been suspended due to ecosystem challenges and "usage patterns". The latter suggests that the program simply did not have enough users to justify ongoing support. The company carefully formulated its statement to show that there are no plans to repeat the project in the near future.
The company from Redmond suggests users to migrate to SQL Server on Linux Containers, which is already supported in production environments unlike its Windows counterpart. It's important to note that SQL Server on Windows Containers never made it past the "beta" label, so it wasn't intended for production environments. So this announcement is sure to upset developers who have invested time in developing applications that make use of this feature or those who have used it in production environments.
Microsoft has stated that the SQL Server Express and Developer for Windows Containers Docker repositories will be deleted soon. The tags in these repositories will also be deleted and the Docker images will no longer be available for λήψη.
