Microsoft emphasizes use of containers for development and test on SQL Server 2017, and new solutions from Red Gate and Windocks add support for containers and SQL Server database cloning for the full range of the SQL Server family. We’ll explore use of containers for delivery of container environments, and their pros and cons. We’ll also look at SQL Server cloning, and how clones enable Dev and Test teams to work on large database environments for containers as well as existing SQL Server instances.

Containers and Clones are particularly well suited for Public and Hybrid Cloud, as it’s infrastructure agnostic. Container images are ultimately portable, and the built-in database cloning is especially useful on public clouds.