Significant Azure Data Studio update

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Earlier this month Microsoft released a significant Azure Data Studio update to coincide with the SQL Server 2019 release.

Because it was released the same time as the SQL Server 2019 release there are some significant updates in this release. For instance, the Deploy SQL Server wizard which I discussed in a previous post.

I talked about the using the wizard in the Insiders build to deploy Big Data Cluster in that post. You can read that post in detail here.

Now, as well as deploying Big Data Clusters you can also use the wizard to deploy SQL Server container images locally using Docker.

First thing to remember is that when you run this wizard it actually creates a notebook for you. Which you then use to run the required scripts in their cells afterwards.

You can find out exactly which new features are available in Azure Data Studio by reading the release notes in detail here.

Deploying RHEL based image

Now, by default when you use the ‘Deploy SQL Server’ wizard to deploy a container image it’s based on the Ubuntu Linux distribution.

Therefore, I thought I better share a tip on how to deploy a RHEL image for SQL Server 2019 instead.

You do this by making manual changes to the generated notebook using the below steps:

1. In the ‘Pull container image’ section change ‘mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-latest’ to ‘mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/rhel/server:2019-latest’ instead.
2. In the ‘Start a new container’ section make the same change.

You can also see the wizard in action towards the end of a video that was released on Christmas Day. Which is about SQL Server related services in Azure. It shows an example of how to use the wizard to deploy a Big Data Cluster, and you can watch it here.

I hope you enjoyed this post about this significant Azure Data Studio update. I highly recommend using it and experimenting with all the new features.

Of course, if you have used it yourself feel free to comment about your experience with it here.