In this chapter, we got an overview of how SQL Server can be hosted in a container environment (natively on Windows), allowing us to easily deploy new instances of SQL Server with effectively a single line of code. This lightweight virtualization technology fits well into a development scenario and encourages us to experiment with new versions of SQL Server without the traditional overhead of enterprise IT workflows for deploying new servers.

We also saw how simple it is to install SQL Server on Linux, which is, in fact, even simpler than installing SQL Server on Windows. A single repository command can download the desired release of SQL Server and deploy it into a Linux installation. Depending on the internet connection, we can potentially spin up an instance of SQL Server in minutes rather than multiples of that time when working with Windows (including server restarts...