Microsoft is making available on July 17 its first near-final public Release Candidate of SQL Server 2017.

SQL Server 2017 is the first version of Microsoft’s SQL Server database that will run on both Linux and Windows Server. Microsoft officials have said to expect SQL Server 2017 to be generally available some time this Summer.

To date, Microsoft has released seven Community Technology Previews of SQL Server 2017. Microsoft used the Microsoft Research “Drawbridge” technology to bring SQL Server to Linux. Drawbridge is an adaptation of the Library OS concept on which Microsoft Research has been working for the past several years. It’s a form of virtualization specifically for application sandboxing. Drawbridge played a role in getting the Bash shell to run on Windows 10, too.

This release of SQL Server, in addition to supporting Linux, also will provide graph data processing, adaptive query processing and Python integration for advanced analytics, officials have said.

SQL Server 2017 Release Candidate 1adds SQL Server on Linux Active Directory integration; Transport Layer Security (TLS) for data encryption; more SQL Server Analysis Services functionality; and SQL Server Integration Services on Linux and Windows Server.

SQL Server 2017 installs on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and on Linux Docker containers on Linux, Windows or macOS, along with Windows Server.

Should the cloud close the front door to the database?

The recent MongoDB ransomware hack in the cloud that made headlines earlier this week raises questions as to whether cloud platform providers should take the initiative in babysitting their most negligent customers.