Chapter 1: Setting Up SQL Server 2019

Microsoft SQL Server is not just a database engine; over the years, it has become a very complex and robust technology set for data management, analysis, and visualizations. As the progress of technologies incorporated into SQL Server grows, it has become more complicated to decide which specific technology is needed, how to prepare the environment for its installation, and which configuration properties administrators should be aware of. With the rising popularity of cloud services, we also have a great option to host database services in Microsoft Azure as well. This chapter offers an introduction to the SQL Server technology stack in on-premises environments and helps you to accomplish its proper installation to start your work with SQL Server.

In this chapter, we will study what the SQL Server technology set contains and the purpose of each technology. We will also get familiar with the prerequisites and pre-installation steps, and will find out which settings are important and which post-installation steps are recommended during the installation of Windows. Using a step-by-step approach, we will learn to install SQL Server on Linux using Ubuntu. In this chapter, we will also understand the process of SQL Server provisioning in containers.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Overview of the Microsoft SQL Server 2019 technology
• Preparing the SQL Server 2019 installation on Windows
• Installing SQL Server 2019 on Windows
• Installing SQL Server 2019 on Linux
• Installing SQL Server 2019 on containers