In this post I would like to tell about a brief insight of benefits what Docker can provide to you as a .NET stack developer working with SQL Server. Maybe the main focus and excitement this time will be about the new opportunities in local development on Mac OS, nevertheless the good things what Docker can bring to you are more than just that.
- Sql Management Studio For Mac
- Sql Server Express Edition For Mac
- Sql Server Express 2017 Download For Mac
- Run Sql Server On Mac
- Great news, Microsoft has recently made improvements to make this a little easier. Now it doesn’t run natively on mac but you can do it via docker. Heres a step.
- Having read Rob's post about the release of SQL Server 2005 Express Edition sp2 (could they not have come up with a snappier name - think mySQL, for example!), I decided to go ahead and see if it would install and run on my Mac! The install was uneventful and I documented it as a.
A short background
I got the backup running by installing it on a SQL Server Express database on a nearby Windows computer in my office. I can see that the DB is working if I connect to it using SQL Server Management Studio on that computer. However, I have so far not been able to connect to it from my Mac, which is were I plan to do most of my development.
Why Mac OS?
I'm a web developer & CI/CD process administrator in my everyday work in Geta. I have Mac OS as my host OS for many years now and I really enjoy the benefits what I get using devices in so called 'Mac ecosystem'. Won't go in more details about it this time but that is why I'm writing about Docker in Mac OS.
Why SQL Server?
![Sql Server Express For Mac Sql Server Express For Mac](/uploads/1/3/4/0/134052147/670785293.gif)
Our company's core business is to produce web applications & services built on .NET platform and obviously SQL Server is most common database engine choice in this context because it fits well with .NET applications. This means that pretty much every developer in our company has to run local SQL Server instance for local development purposes on their computers. And obviously there haven't been easy solutions to run SQL Server natively on Mac OS, which requires me to run it on Windows hosted on Parallels Desktop VM, which in turn makes me sacrifice some host OS resources. As I mentioned, I take it in favor of having some other benefits of working on Mac OS. :)
![For For](/uploads/1/3/4/0/134052147/715330266.jpg)
Why Docker?
Docker / containers / microservices has been a buzz words to me (from sessions in conferences, different blog posts, buddy in the company who have had hands-on experience with Docker - Klavs Prieditis) for a several years, but I never managed to discover these things more. And then few weeks ago somewhere on the Internet :) I ran into this MSDN post about running SQL Server 2017 container with Docker which reminded me that would be nice to test these things. Finally the last thing which nailed it all was a message from another workmate in Geta Valdis Iljuconoks about the new lightweight SQL tool by Microsoft which can be run on Mac OS.
So these are basically the reasons why I felt it was right time for me to try all these pieces stiching together and to see if I could get more freedom of Windows & Parallels Desktop. Turned out it was easy to set up everything -> it is easy to use -> it performs much faster than on Parallels VM -> I'm happy -> I want to tell about this to others! :)
Problem
As I mentioned before I rely on Parallels Desktop VM to run SQL Server local instance. That means I have to start my Windows VM every time I need to access some local database which takes some time obviously as well as running software on VM is not as resource-efficient as running similar software on native OS.
Besides that SQL Server Management Studio (which I used before to connect to my local SQL databases) alone is a rather heavy piece of software, which is often more than you need to do a basic tasks with SQL Server e.g. run basic table queries, create new users, grant permissions etc.
Solution
1. Install Docker engine (Docker for Mac in my case)
Games like age of empires for mac. That's a rather straightforward installation process, just follow the installation instructions on Docker site. When you have completed installation you must have Docker whale icon visible in Mac OS menu bar.
You can verify that Docker CLI is also successfully installed by running
docker version
command.
Sql Management Studio For Mac
2. Pull & Run SQL Server Docker container image
Sql Server Express Edition For Mac
Again, this is also very simple (even without any previous Docker knowledge) if you follow the MSDN post.
-
Pull the SQL Server image from Docker Hub.I was totally fine with the latest SQL version so I went with that.Btw, really sweet progress bar for Docker CLI. :)
-
Run container image on your Docker engine.I did some parameter value adjustments in the
docker run
comand (e.g. container name, SQL password) and also added shared folder mapping option my from host OS. It's good to have shared folder mapped when you would like to transfer some files into docker container. In my case I realized that I need it for copying db backup file and later restoring a db from it.
3. Connect to a Docker SQL Server from your preferred SQL tool
SQL Operations Studio
As I wrote before one of the main reasons of my excitement about this all was release of SQL Operations Studio for Mac OS which is a free SQL Server tool that runs on Mac OS. I find it very good for doing basic everyday tasks (from web developer perspective) because of simplicity and having GUI.
Before SQL Operations Studio I was sometimes using also mssql extension for VS Code which also runs on Mac OS but in comparison lacks nicer GUI for switching databases and SQL servers, restoring databases. Nevertheless it can be handy if you don't have to work with SQL Server often and not with many different servers and databases. I feel like SQL Operations Studio is a nice alternative for me between comprehensive SQL Server Management Studio and VS Code in terms of simplicity and functionality features.
Sql Server Express 2017 Download For Mac
So now you can connect to the local SQL Server instance running on Docker by specifying a server name (localhost) and a port number (1401) what you specified in the
docker run
command previously.
Woohoo! You are finally connected to SQL Server instance running on Mac Docker container and using SQL tool running natively on Mac OS too. :)
Run Sql Server On Mac
You can now either create new db from script or restore it by first copying backup file into mapped Docker folder and then selecting the db backup file in Restore dialog of SQL Operations Studio.
SQL Server Command Line Tools
Just wanted to note that there is also SQL Server Command Line Tools for Mac which is another relatively new SQL tool from Microsoft which is now available for Mac OS (in preview version though). It is yet another evidence that .NET stack developers are slowly 'set free' of having to use Windows.
sqlcmd can be installed via the Homebrew package manager which (as many Mac users probably already know) is really handy tool for easy beer brewing installation of various applications from Terminal.
Fugu for mac. At first link the sqlcmd git repository with
brew tap
command.
Then simply install the software with
brew install
.
Vlc media player for mac. Now you can connect to your SQL Server with sqlcmd command line utility from Mac OS Terminal.
And even run a SQL query! :) Flash drive format for mac and pc.
Summary
To wrap this up I could say that with rather small effort it is possible to set up OS-independent SQL Server instance, which can be easily stopped, transferred to other environment, ran together with other versions / instances of SQL server etc. Docker provides a lot of isolation and flexibility and makes life much easier for many developers (not only for those who are on Mac OS) epsecially when there are sufficient SQL tools which are free and can run on their OS.
Developer
Andris Sarbantovics
- E-mail: [email protected]
- Phone:
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