SQL Server 2019 release candidate was made available last week. Which of course means the official release of SQL Server 2019 is now even closer.
In brief, this release candidate includes new features that were introduced in previous CTP’s. For example, Big Data Clusters which I provided learning resources for in a previous post here.
Like the SQL Server 2019 CTP’s, you can install the SQL Server 2019 release candidate on various platforms. In fact, you can see the various platforms on the SQL Server 2019 install page here.
However, I noticed the links on the SQL Server 2019 install page currently still only goes to the CTP installations. So, I have asked Microsoft about this on their feedback page.
Meanwhile, you can find the correct link for the Windows version of the SQL Server 2019 release candidate here.
What is interesting is that you can do an in-place upgrade from SQL Server 2019 CTP 3.0 and above. Just to make sure it works I tested the Windows upgrade for myself.
In-place SQL Server upgrade
I first downloaded the media for the release candidate and than mounted the ISO onto a virtual machine I had installed CTP 3.2 on.
Afterwards, I started the setup on my Virtual Machine and then opened the SQL Server installation Center.
From there, I went to the Installation tab and selected the option to upgrade from a previous version.
After the upgrade had finished, I restarted the server and used sqlcmd to confirm it had upgraded.
SQL Server 2019 Linux support
Another key point is that the versions of Linux that are supported still appear to be the same ones as for SQL Server 2017.
However, Red Hat have announced an interesting webinar they are doing in October about managing RHEL 8 for SQL Server database administrators.
It’s interesting because now SQL Server running on RHEL 8 is not supported. Surely that means we can expect an updated list of supported Linux distributions shortly.
You can read more about that webinar in detail here.
Final word
I’m really excited about this release candidate. Because now that this SQL Server 2019 release candidate is available it can only a matter of time before we see the official release.
In the meantime, you can use this release candidate to get use to the new features. In addition, you can use the SQL Server 2019 Lab which I posted about here to get hands-on experience with the new features.
Of course, if you have any thoughts about this you are more than welcome to add a comment.
[…] Of course, they asked this because the links were not working yet. Something which I have provided feedback to Microsoft about and discussed in my previous post here. […]