A few new virtual machine images showed up on Azure. Looking through the images, one can now find images for both SQL Server 2019 and SQL Server 2019 CTP. This is an excellent way to test the new software before going live with it in production. One note is that at the time of this writing, the only version of Windows Server 2019 that’s available is datacenter.

While I’m a big fan of using containers to try out SQL Server 2019 CTP, it’s available now under Azure in the form of a virtual machine. The Azure versions can be super helpful for those who aren’t yet ready to get into Docker or who might want to share with a configuration with a team. It’s also a nice option for those who might already have ARM templates created as they can have SQL 2019 up and running with just a few changes to existing templates.

The options are pretty good at the time of this writing. There are both SQL Server on Linux as well as Windows options available. All of the licenses are free at the moment.

(CTP 2.0) SQL Server 2019 Developer on Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS
(CTP 2.0) SQL Server 2019 Developer on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 (RHEL)
(CTP 2.0) SQL Server 2019 Developer on Windows Server 2016

I expect the number of options to increase over time, but there should be enough there for most people to get comfortable with the software before the final version becomes available.