Microsoft made the new cross-platform SQL Operations Studio (SOS) tool available on Github this week as a free open-source project. This SOS preview allows one to develop and manage SQL Server and Azure SQL Database from Windows, Linux, and macOS. The current preview can be downloaded from the SOS portal page, which also contains links to impressive quick start guides, how-to, and tutorials. I encourage you to try out the preview and improve it by reporting issues and offering suggestions.
If you are a developer, consider contributing to this project on Github. SOS is built on the Electron framework, which leverages JavaScript, HTML, and Node.js technologies to build rich cross-platform desktop applications. This is the same stack that the popular VS Code IDE employs so it’s not surprising SOS has a similar look and feel.
SOS is yet another indicator of a significant culture shift at Microsoft. If you asked me just a few years ago, I would have said SQL Server would run Linux when pigs fly. Nowadays, SQL Server on Linux is reality. Microsoft now embraces open-source and cross-platform technologies as part of the eco system and welcomes community contributions to the tooling that makes jobs easier for both developers and DBAs.
The release of SOS does not mean to suggest that SSMS (also free but not open-source) is deprecated. The SOS FAQ specifically calls out that “investments in flagship Windows tools (SSMS, SSDT, PowerShell) will continue in addition to the next generation of multi-OS and multi-DB CLI and GUI tools. The goal is to offer customers the choice of using the tools they want on the platforms of their choice for their scenarios.”
Choices are good, IMHO, because there is no one-size fits all solution that will keep everyone happy. I’m also glad the see multi-DB mentioned as a next generation tool direction because, like many data folks, I work with DBMS products in addition to SQL Server and Azure SQL Database. I don’t really expect a single tool to fulfill all my needs but the less I need to jump between tools for common tasks, the better.
What I like most about SOS is its easy extensibility. Dashboard and insight widgets for server and database views are easily built and customized for one’s particular needs, allowing you to automatically run favorite DMV queries and show results in graph or tabular form. Code snippets are very easy to create and use.
Visit the SOS portal page to see the power of SOS and try it out yourself.