Using Docker for Local SQL Server Development

Using docker images for development is a super power, you don’t need SQL installed on your development machine, yet you still have the full power of SQL there for you when you need it. Also, if you want specific versions for different projects, you can simply spin up the version you want, and keep all the configuration inside a dockerfile in your repository for that project. In this article, we are going to: Download the latest SQL Server docker image locally Create a docker container and connect to it from SQL Server Management Studio Setup a volume mount to store the database files outside of the container so we can persist the data when we tear down our container Set this up with a docker-compose file