SQL Server is a very popular, powerful, and versatile option in the ever-evolving landscape of database management. It is a robust and widely used relational database management system (RDBMS) developed and managed by Microsoft. SQL Server natively supports SQL (Structured Query Language) for querying and manipulating data stored in the tables. This makes SQL Server accessible and versatile for developers and administrators. Microsoft SQL Server is essential for many business applications. It is widely used across industries for data management and analysis as a high-throughput OLTP system.
On the other hand, in the world of modern software development and deployment, Docker has emerged as a game-changing technology. It is needless to say Docker has revolutionized the way we package, distribute, and manage Software applications. It is an open-source platform and is used to automate the deployment of applications inside lightweight, portable, and self-sufficient containers. These Docker containers are isolated environments that encapsulate everything an application needs to run. It encapsulates user code, runtime libraries, system tools, and other dependencies in a single package. This way, Docker helps developers to create, ship, and run applications consistently across various environments, from development laptops to production servers and cloud platforms. This step-by-step guide will walk you through the process of installing SQL Server using Docker on a Windows environment.
Why SQL Server in Docker on Windows?
Before diving into the installation process, let’s understand why running SQL Server in Docker containers on Windows is advantageous over directly installing it on your machine.
Isolation:
Docker provides strong isolation that ensures the SQL Server instance operates independently of other applications on your Windows machine. This isolation prevents conflicts and simplifies the deployment process.
Portability:
The containerized SQL Server instances is highly portable that helps us to package the complete database environment, including all configurations and dependencies, into a single container image. Then, this image can be deployed consistently across various environments.
Resource Efficiency:
Very importantly, Docker containers are lightweight and efficient and they share resources with the host operating system. This resource sharing enables us to run multiple SQL Server instances without significant resource overheads on a Windows Machine.
Easy Scaling:
Scaling in and scaling out SQL Server instances become more manageable with Docker containers. We can quickly spin up additional containers to distribute workloads or create replicas if needed.
Step-by-step Guide: SQL Server Installation using Docker on Windows
Now, let’s get started with the installation process od SQL Server using a Docker image.
Step 1: Install Docker Desktop for Windows
Firstly, we need to install Docker for Windows on our machine. We can download it from the Docker website and follow the on-screen installation instructions. Docker for Windows includes everything we need to run Docker containers in Windows environment. The link to download the Docker is here.
Step 2: Pull the SQL Server Docker Image
Secondly, we need to pull the Docker image to download SQL Server Docker image. To do so:
- Open a command prompt or PowerShell terminal.
- Use the docker pull command to download the SQL Server Docker image. If we want, we can specify the SQL Server version that we want to downalod in the Docker image tag.
docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest
This command will fetch the SQL Server 2022 image from Microsoft’s container registry. The complete guide on how to install SQL Server Docker image is available and maintained by Microsoft here.
Step 3: Run the SQL Server Container
Thridly, we can create and start a new SQL Server container using the downloaded SQL Server Docker image. We can use the following command to create and start the SQL Server container.
docker run -e "ACCEPT_EULA=Y" -e "SA_PASSWORD=MyStrongPassword" -p 1433:1433 --name sqlserver -d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-latest
Once, we execute the above command, the SQL Server container starts up and running. Here’s what each part of the command does:
-e “ACCEPT_EULA=Y”: Accepts the End-User License Agreement.
-e “SA_PASSWORD=MyStrongPassword”: It sets the sa (system administrator) password.
-p 1433:1433: Maps port 1433 in the container to port 1433 on the host machine.
–name sqlserver: Assigns a name (“sqlserver”) to the container. We can name it as per our choice.
-d: Runs the container in detached mode, that allows it to operate in the background mode.
Step 4: Connect to SQL Server using SQL Server Management Studio
Fourthly, we need to download and install SQL Server client tool to connect to the SQL Server instance running within the Docker container. We can use SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) or any other SQL Server client as per our choice. To download SSMS client tool, click here.
Once it is downloaded, we can follow the on-screen instructions to install SQL Server Management Studio.
Finally, to connect to the SQL Server instance, we need to provide the hostname or IP address of the Windows machine, along with the port we have mapped in the previous step (e.g., localhost,1433 or 127.0.0.1,1433). Log in using the sa username and the password we have set during setup in the above command.
Once, we connect successfully to SQL Server, we can start executing the queries.
Conclusion
Running SQL Server in Docker containers on Windows brings flexibility and efficiency to the database management workflow. It allows us to isolate our SQL Server instances, optimize resource usage, and simplify deployment across different environments. Thanks for the reading, please share your inputs in the comment section.
