SQL Server 2019 is an advanced, on-premises release of Microsoft's primary database engine. The headline enhancement is the integration of SQL Server 2019 with the Spark analytics engine, HDFS, and other Linux-based big data technologies to support Big Data Clusters. The Big Data Cluster enables massively scaled AI tasks on the high-volume data held in HDFS and SQL Server 2019 storage pools. You can deploy Big Data Clusters as containers in self-hosted Kubernetes clusters, such as AKS on Azure Stack, or in any cloud with a Kubernetes service such as Microsoft Azure AKS.
SQL 2019 also includes improvements in the fundamental SQL Server database technology like feature parity on Linux machines. Additional significant innovations impact SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS).
Because Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 have reached EOS status, migrating to a current release of Microsoft SQL Server makes sense for organizations worried about security, compatibility, and productivity. Progent has twenty years of background designing, deploying, tuning, and troubleshooting SQL Server environments and can assist organizations of any size to carry out an efficient migration to SQL Server 2019. Progent's Microsoft Gold-certified SQL Server consultants can help you to assess the benefits for transitioning to Microsoft SQL Server 2019 from an older version of Microsoft SQL Server and Progent can provide rapid online or on-premises access to top-tier consultants in system design, software development, DBA services, and cybersecurity. Progent can help you to install SQL Server 2019 on premises, in a private or public cloud, or in a hybrid on-prem/cloud network model.
You can work with Progent's consultants on an as-needed basis for tasks like system architecture guidance or troubleshooting or you can receive comprehensive project management and co-management services to make sure your SQL Server 2019 migration is successfully carried out on time and within budget. Progent can provide the skills of certified network security consultants, disaster recovery/business continuity planning consultants, and database application designers and programmers to make sure your Microsoft SQL Server 2019 ecosystem delivers maximum business value.
Progent's Microsoft Gold-certified consulting experts can also help your organization to set up SQL Server 2019 to work with other Microsoft products and services by providing expertise such as Microsoft Windows Server 2019 integration consulting, Windows Hyper-V planning and integration expertise, Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 solution design consulting, SharePoint 2019 design and deployment expertise, hybrid integration with Microsoft Azure cloud services, Microsoft Skype for Business integration consulting services, Microsoft Dynamics GP/Great Plains reporting consulting, and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) consultants.
Progent's veteran application developers can assist your business to plan, create, validate, install, and troubleshoot applications that use SQL Server 2019 databases and Progent offers guidance in data modeling, (Online Transaction Processing, Data Warehousing and Mining, ETL, optimization, availability, backup/restore, reporting, and integration with Amazon MWS. To learn more about Progent's SQL Server programming and troubleshooting expertise, refer to SQL Server software development services.
SQL Server 2019 Versions
SQL Server 2019 is available in five basic editions distinguished by price, performance, scale and licensing rules. Progent can help you decide which editions make sense for your needs, and Progent can also help you simplify license management.
SQL Server 2019 Enterprise is the top-of-the-line version of Microsoft SQL Server 2019 and is designed for critical business applications requiring the most advanced levels of capacity, availability, and performance. Processing power and memory permitted per database are limited only by the operating system maximum, the amount of VMs allowed is unlimited, and database size can be as high as 524 petabytes. High availability capabilities unique to the Enterprise version of Microsoft SQL Server 2019 include Always On availability groups, online file restore, online index create, suspend and resume online index rebuilds, fast recovery, and live add RAM and CPU. Scalability and throughput functions for the Enterprise edition of SQL Server 2019 include in-memory database, resource governance, automatic optimization, read ahead plus row mode memory grant feedback. The Enterprise edition of SQL Server 2019 also offers a more complete set of data warehousing services, Master Data Services and Reporting Services than other editions.
Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Developer version is basically the same as the Enterprise version, but is licensed for use only for application development and validation. The Developeredition is not permitted for use in a production server. SQL Server 2019 Developer allows only a single client for the SQL Server Distributed Replay feature.
Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Standard version is intended for departments and small organizations who need a basic, minimum-overhead platform for data management and business intelligence. SQL Server 2019 Standard edition includes all the cybersecurity functions of SQL Server 2019 Enterprise, but compute scale is limited to the lesser of four sockets or two dozen cores. For every instance of SQL Server Database Engine, the most RAM for the buffer pool cache is 128 GB, and max RAM-optimized data size is 32 GB. Unlike the Enterprise edition, the Standard version of SQL Server 2019 does not come with advanced R and Python integration and does not include Machine Learning Services, but includes the remaining programmability functions and the management utilities available with the Enterprise edition. High-end functions such as transparent data encryption and Big Data Clusters are included with the Standard edition.
SQL Server 2019 Web edition is an inexpensive package intended for web hosting organizations. Compute capacity is limited to the lesser of four sockets or 16 cores, maximum buffer pool memory is 64 MB, and maximum RAM is 64 GB. In contrast to the Standard version of SQL Server 2019, Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Web edition does not support Always On failover cluster instances, basic availability groups, or accelerated database recovery. The Web edition also does not support transparent database or backup encryption. You can profile Microsoft SQL Server Web with SQL Server Enterprise or SQL Server Standard versions, and SQL Server Web comes with the other management utilities included with the Standard version. Data warehousing, tabular models, Business Intelligence Services, and some Reporting Services are not provided.
Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Express, available in a few variants, is a free low-end version of Microsoft SQL Server designed for training or for developing desktop, small-server, and client apps that do not require an industrial-strength DBMS. Compute power is limited to the smaller of one socket or four cores, max buffer pool cache RAM is 1.41 MB, and top memory-optimized data size is 352 MB. If applications developed with SQL Server 2019 Express grow to require more capacity or additional features, you can migrate seamlessly to more advanced editions of SQL Server. Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Express with Advanced Services adds Basic R and SQL Graph services, the distributed replay management utility, and SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT). Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Express with Advanced Services can also support a SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) database. SQL Server Express LocalDB is a ultra-lite edition of Express that runs in user mode and can be installed without setup and with virtually no prerequisites. The LocalDB edition of Express shares all the programmability functions of other Express releases but does not support in-memory (Online Transaction Processing.
Parts of Microsoft SQL Server 2019
The Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Installation Wizard enables you to select which of the SQL Server components you wish to include in your installation. These components include:
SQL Server Database Engine
The Database Engine is the core of SQL Server's services for processing, holding, and securing data. The Database Engine is used for replication, search, tools for managing relational data, integrating in-database analytics, supporting PolyBase for working with outside data repositories such as Hadoop, and Machine Learning Services for processing SQL Server's relational data using Python and R scripts.
SSAS
SQL SSAS is an OLAP and data mining toolset for extracting useful insights from data dispersed over multiple databases or in a variety of files or tables.
SQL Server Reporting Services
SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) offers a set of local tools and services that enable organizations to create, distribute, and manage tabular, matrix, graphical, and unstructured reports, both mobile and paginated. You can create responsive-design smart phone reports with Microsoft's Mobile Report Publisher app and use native Power BI apps for handheld endpoints to access the data processed in SSRS.
Integration Services
Integration Services (SSIS) is a collection of programmable objects and zero-code graphical utilities for blending data from a wide variety of sources. ETL processes can be applied to XML data files, text, and relational data sources. Integration Services can be utilized for copying or downloading files, populating data warehouses, cleaning up and mining data, and controlling SQL Server data and objects.
Master Data Services (MDS)
Master Data Services (MDS) is SQL Server's Master Data Management (MDM) solution that allows you to build a single view of enterprise data, synchronizing data silos to avoid duplication and versioning models to preserve consistency. A Microsoft Excel add-in makes it easy to publish the master data set across an enterprise.
In-Database Machine Learning Services
Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Machine Learning Services enables you to execute Python and R scripts using relational data without the need to move data out of SQL Server or over your network to another server. The Microsoft Python and R packages can be used for predictive analytics and machine learning.
New and Improved Features of SQL Server 2019
The most prominent new feature for SQL Server 2019 is Big Data Clusters, which allows you to process big data from Transact-SQL or Spark for machine learning solutions. Additional new or improved features cover important areas including the SQL Server Database Engine, feature equivalence between SQL Server on Linux and Microsoft SQL Server on Windows, SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS).
Big Data Clusters
trusted execution environment Server 2019 introduces the Big Data Cluster, a cluster of Linux containers orchestrated by Kubernetes. The Big Data Cluster allows you to implement and use scalable clusters in connected SQL Server, Spark, and HDFS containers managed by Kubernetes. Since these components can run concurrently, The Big Data Clusters technology allows you to process big data from Transact-SQL or Apache Spark and makes it simpler to combine and analyze your internal SQL Server relational data with. Implementation scenarios include virtualized data for querying external data sources without transferring or replicating the data, data lakes created with HDFS storage pools to hold big data, and scale-out data marts to spread data from various sources across multiple data pool nodes. You can use Apache Spark or built-in R, Python, Scala, and Java tools in SQL Server 2019 for machine learning jobs on the data deposited in HDFS storage pools and data pools.
Additional Enhancements to the SQL Server 2019 Database Engine
Additional enhancements to the SQL Server 2019 Database Engine address intelligent databases, the developer environment, cybersecurity, high-availability, and Linux/Windows feature parity. Improvements to the Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Database Engine include:
Enhancements to SQL Server 2019 Reporting Services (SSRS)
Improvements to SQL Server 2019 Reporting Services include:
Progent can assist you to port your data and applications, set up test systems to verify SQL Server 2019's capability to run your mission-critical applications, centralize management, create and implement a company-wide security strategy that complies with government and industry requirements, accommodate mobile devices, and define a disaster recovery/business continuity plan that incorporates the modern HA technologies incorporated in SQL Server 2019.
IT consulting services available from Progent for SQL Server 2019 include:
If you require immediate remote assistance from a Microsoft-certified support expert, see Progent's Online IT Support.
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