Revolutionize Your SQL Server Environment With Containers
The use of containers in production is a game-changing technology that promises unparalleled agility. In fact, containers evolved into a crucial tool for IT professionals seeking to modernize their SQL Server environments. According to Gartner, by 2026, 90% of global organizations will be using containerized applications in production (a significant increase from fewer than 40% in 2021), making it clear that this technology is quickly becoming the new industry standard.
While modernizing your SQL Server environment(s) with containers comes with an initial cost, the benefits are worth it. SQL Server containers provide powerful advantages that can lead to reduced costs, improved performance and agility and zero total downtime for your organization.
Cost Efficiency
Containers are inherently lightweight, agile and flexible, making them an ideal solution for deploying business-critical workloads quickly and consistently across a mix of physical, virtual and cloud servers. This consistency is critical in reducing overall costs for organizations. By unifying orchestration tools and management systems, containers increase the speed to market for applications and significantly reduce recurring management expenses. They enable the creation of a pay-as-you-go multi-cloud or hybrid environment that maximizes cost efficiency. Additionally, multiple containers can be run on a single server, allowing for significant savings through consolidation of your SQL Server environment.
Cloud Transformation
Organizations are attracted to the benefits of cloud computing, such as unmatched agility and the ability to seamlessly scale their environment to meet operational needs. By containerizing SQL Server, applications can be more easily portable within existing cloud deployments or facilitate the transition to a hybrid or multi-cloud infrastructure. Containers ensure consistent application performance, regardless of the hosting infrastructure.
Eliminate Microsoft SQL Server Downtime
Containerizing an organization’s SQL Server environment, which hosts some of its most valuable data assets, has not always been a simple process. Mitigating downtime is a major concern, and rightly so. Relying solely on pod-level high availability is insufficient protection for many global organizations, as the cost of downtime can reach seven-figure sums per hour.
To achieve this goal, database administrators should look for a clustering solution that can enable fully automated database-level failover of SQL Server Availability Groups in Kubernetes. This capability enables failover automation at the database level, resulting in reduced failover windows from minutes to seconds for containerized SQL Server.
Modernize Microsoft SQL Server with Containers
The use of legacy infrastructure with SQL Server can pose a significant vulnerability, and the longer it is ignored, the greater the risk becomes. However, leveraging the power of containers for modernization provides the simplest path to the future for any organization. Although there is an initial cost, incorporating production containers into your environment leads to a substantial reduction in management and infrastructure expenses for your organization. Furthermore, it enables a scalable and optimized existence for your SQL Server assets in the cloud. Most importantly, containerizing your SQL Server environment ensures minimal downtime, but this requires appropriate high-availability clustering technology.