Microsoft SQL Server 2019 is a modern, on-premises version of Microsoft's primary database engine. The headline enhancement is the integration of Microsoft SQL Server 2019 with the Spark analytics engine, HDFS, and additional Linux-powered big data components to enable Big Data Clusters. The Big Data Cluster supports data-intensive AI tasks on the data resident in HDFS and Microsoft SQL Server storage pools. You can deploy Big Data Clusters as containers in self-hosted Kubernetes clusters, like AKS on Azure Stack, or in a cloud with a managed Kubernetes service such as Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service.
Microsoft SQL 2019 also delivers improvements in the fundamental SQL database engine such as feature parity on Linux systems. Additional significant enhancements improve SSAS and SQL Server Reporting Services.
Since Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 have arrived at EOS status, migrating to a modern version of Microsoft SQL Server makes sense for organizations concerned about security, manageability, and competitiveness. Progent has two decades of experience planning, implementing, tuning, and debugging SQL Server environments and can assist companies of all sizes to perform a cost-effective upgrade to SQL Server 2019. Progent's Microsoft Gold-certified SQL Server consultants can help your business to assess the benefits for transitioning to Microsoft SQL Server 2019 from any earlier version of SQL Server and Progent offers fast online or onsite access to experts in solution design, software programming, DBA services, and cybersecurity. Progent can assist you to deploy SQL Server 2019 on premises, in the cloud, or in a hybrid on-prem/cloud network architecture.
You can work with Progent's consultants on an as-needed basis for jobs like system architecture review or debugging or you can receive end-to-end project management services to make sure your SQL Server 2019 initiative is completed on time and within budget. Progent can provide the skills of certified information security consultants, disaster recovery preparedness specialists, and database application designers and programmers to make sure your SQL Server 2019 deployment delivers maximum business value.
Progent's Microsoft Gold-certified IT experts can also assist your organization to configure Microsoft SQL Server 2019 to work with additional Microsoft apps and services by providing expertise that includes Microsoft Windows Server 2019 consulting, Windows Hyper-V planning and integration consulting, Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 solution design expertise, SharePoint 2019 development expertise, hybrid configuration with Microsoft Azure cloud services, Microsoft Skype for Business integration consulting, Dynamics GP/Great Plains reporting consulting services, and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager consulting.
Progent's veteran application developers can help you to design, create, pilot test, deploy, and troubleshoot applications that use Microsoft SQL Server 2019 and Progent offers expertise in data modeling, (Online Transaction Processing, Data Warehousing, Data Mining, ETL, optimization, availability, backup/recovery, analytics, and integration with Amazon Marketplace Web Service. To find out more about Progent's SQL Server programming and troubleshooting services, see SQL Server application programming experts.
Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Editions
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 SQL Server 2019 and is designed for critical applications requiring the most advanced levels of expandability, resilience, and throughput. Processing power and memory permitted per database are bound only by the operating system limit, the amount of virtual machines allowed is unlimited, and relational database size can be as high as 524 PB. HA features unique to the Enterprise edition of SQL Server 2019 include Always On availability groups, online page and file restore, online index create and rebuild, pause and resume online index rebuilds, mirrored backups, and live add RAM and processor. Scalability and performance functions exclusive to the Enterprise edition of Microsoft SQL Server 2019 include in-memory database, resource governance, automatic tuning, batch mode adaptive joins plus memory grant feedback. The Enterprise version of Microsoft SQL Server 2019 also offers a more complete collection of data warehousing services, Analysis Services and Advanced Integration Services than other editions.
SQL Server 2019 Developer version is essentially identical to the Enterprise version, but is restricted for use only for application development and testing. The Developeredition is not permitted for use in a production system. SQL Server 2019 Developer supports only one client for the SQL Server Distributed Replay feature.
Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Standard version is intended for departments and small organizations who need an entry-level, minimum-overhead solution for data management and business intelligence. SQL Server 2019 Standard version includes all the cybersecurity features of SQL Server 2019 Enterprise, but compute capacity is limited to the lesser of 4 sockets or 24 cores. For each instance of SQL Server Database Engine, maximum memory for the buffer pool cache is 128 GB, and maximum memory-optimized data size is 32 GB. In contrast to the Enterprise version, the Standard version of Microsoft SQL Server 2019 does not come with advanced R and Python integration and does not incorporate Machine Learning Services, but includes the other programmability functions as well as the management utilities the come with the Enterprise edition. High-end functions like accelerated database recovery and Big Data Clusters are now included with the Standard version.
SQL Server 2019 Web edition is a value-priced option designed for web hosting organizations. Compute capacity is restricted to the smaller of four sockets or 16 cores, maximum buffer pool RAM is 64 MB, and maximum RAM per instance is 64 GB. In contrast to the Standard edition of SQL Server 2019, Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Web version does not include Always On failover clusters, basic availability groups, or transactional replication to Windows Azure. The Web edition also does not support transparent database encryption. You can profile SQL Server Web by using SQL Server Enterprise or SQL Server Standard versions, and SQL Server Web includes the other management features included with the Standard version. Data warehousing, tabular and multidimensional models, BI Services, and certain Reporting Services are not included.
Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Express, available in several releases, is a free entry-level edition of Microsoft SQL Server intended for training or for developing desktop, small-server, and client applications that do not need an advanced database platform. Processing power is limited to the lesser of 1 socket or 4 cores, maximum buffer pool cache RAM is 1.41 MB, and top RAM-optimized data is 352 MB. If apps created with SQL Server 2019 Express expand to require more capacity or extra features, you can upgrade seamlessly to more powerful editions of Microsoft SQL Server. SQL Server 2019 Express with Advanced Services includes Basic R and SQL Graph integration, the distributed replay management tool, and SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT). Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Express with Advanced Services can also host a SSRS database. SQL Server Express LocalDB is a ultra-lite version of Express that operates in user mode and can be installed without configuration and with almost no prerequisites. The LocalDB version of Express includes the programmability features of other Express variants but does not support in-memory OLTP.
Components of SQL Server 2019
The SQL Server 2019 Installation Wizard allows you to select which of the Microsoft SQL Server components you wish to activate in your deployment. These components include:
SQL Server Database Engine
The Database Engine is the core of SQL Server's services for computing, storing, and securing data. The Database Engine is responsible for replication, full-text search, tools for managing relational data, integrating in-database analytics, integrating PolyBase for working with outside data sources like Hadoop, and Machine Learning Services for processing SQL Server 2019's relational data with Python and R scripts.
Analysis Services
SQL SSAS is an OLAP and data mining toolset for deriving high-value information from data dispersed over multiple databases or in a variety of files or tables.
SQL Server Reporting Services
SSRS offers a set of on-premises utilities and services that enable organizations to build, distribute, and manage tabular, matrix, graphical, and unstructured reports. You can create responsive-design mobile reports with the Mobile Report Publisher app and use native Power BI apps for handheld endpoints to access the data processed in SSRS.
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is a collection of programmable objects and no-code graphical tools for blending data from a wide variety of sources. Extract, transform, and load (ETL) processes can be performed on XML data, text files, and relational data sources. SSIS can be used for copying or downloading files, adding to data warehouses, cleaning up and mining data, and managing SQL Server data.
Master Data Services (MDS)
Master Data Services is Microsoft SQL Server's Master Data Management (MDM) platform that allows organizations to build a centralized visualization of corporate-wide data, synchronizing data silos to avoid redundancies and versioning data organization models to maintain consistency. A Microsoft Excel extension allows you to publish the master data set across an enterprise.
In-Database Machine Learning Services
SQL Server 2019 Machine Learning Services enables you to execute Python and R scripts using relational data without transferring data out of SQL Server or over the network. The open-source Microsoft Python and R packages can be used for predictive analytics and machine learning.
New and Enhanced Features of SQL Server 2019
The most prominent new feature for Microsoft SQL Server 2019 is Big Data Clusters, which allows you to process massive data sets from Transact-SQL or Spark for machine learning solutions. Additional new or enhanced features impact important areas including the SQL Database Engine, feature equivalence between SQL Server on Linux and Microsoft SQL Server on Windows, SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), and SSRS.
Big Data Clusters
trusted execution environment Server 2019 debuts the Big Data Cluster, a cluster of Linux containers orchestrated by Kubernetes. The Big Data Cluster enables you to configure and run scalable clusters in connected SQL Server, Spark, and Hadoop Distributed File System containers orchestrated by Kubernetes. Since these elements can run concurrently, The Big Data Clusters technology allows you to process big data from either Microsoft Transact-SQL or Apache Spark and makes it easy to aggregate and analyze your SQL Server relational data with unstructured big data. Deployment models include virtualized data for processing external data sources without moving or replicating the data, data lakes created with HDFS storage pools to house big data, and scale-out data marts to distribute data from various sources across data pool nodes. You can use Apache Spark or integrated R, Python, Scala, and Java tools in Microsoft SQL Server 2019 for AI and machine learning tasks on the data deposited in HDFS storage pools and data pools.
Additional Enhancements to the Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Database Engine
Other improvements to the Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Database Engine cover intelligent databases, the developer environment, security, high-availability (HA), and Linux/Windows feature parity. Improvements to the Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Database Engine include:
Enhancements to SQL Server 2019 Reporting Services
Enhancements to SQL Server 2019 Reporting Services (SSRS) include:
Progent can assist you to port your data and apps, configure pilot environments to validate SQL Server 2019's ability to support your business-critical workloads, streamline management, design and carry out an enterprise-wide cybersecurity strategy that complies with regulatory and business requirements, integrate mobile devices, and create and test a disaster recovery/business continuity plan that takes advantage of the advanced HA technologies built into Microsoft SQL Server 2019.
Expertise available from Progent for Microsoft SQL Server 2019 include:
If you need immediate online assistance from a Microsoft-certified support expert, see Progent's Online Network Support.
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