Microsoft announces official SQL Server driver for Linux

Microsoft has announced that it is developing an SQL Server ODBC driver for Linux. The news was announced by Microsoft's Corporate Vice President of Database Systems, Quentin Clark, at this year's PASS Summit 2011, and follows the recent news that Microsoft is planning to port Apache Hadoop MapReduce to SQL Server and its Azura Cloud platform. The driver is designed to give Linux and Unix operating systems access to Microsoft's SQL database platform.

In an MSDN blog posting, Microsoft's Brian Swift gave some specific details about the driver gained from speaking to Shekhar Joshi, the Program Manager for the driver. The initial preview release of the driver will be for 64-bit systems running Red Hat Linux 5; support for Red Hat Linux 6 is planned for the RTM release, and a 32-bit driver is currently on the development roadmap. Linux versions of Microsoft's command line SQL utilities, BCP (Bulk Copy Program) for import and export of data, and SQLCMD for SQL queries and scripting, are also going to be included. The development team is using the Windows ODBC driver as a base, and is working to modify the code to compile under Linux. Swift said that "Microsoft has been working closely with a handful of partners to get feedback on private releases of the driver", and that a preview release of the driver will be made publicly available later in the autumn.

See also:

• Microsoft plugs Hadoop into SQL Server and Azure Cloud, a report from The H.

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