Try SQL Server 2016 Release Candidate 3 in Azure Virtual Machine today
Don’t waste your monthly credits and if you have some you can always spin it up with Azure virtual machines to try the SQL Server 2016 RC3 Evaluation on Windows Server 2012 R2.
This is a great and quick fun as you don’t need to manually download the ISO file and keep installing them like I mentioned in this article with step by step instructions.
As you can see in the below Azure portal screen, I am using New => Virtual Machine and then clicked on “See all”, to see all available options and also to search on what I need to search for. The prebuilt images are already available for all of us to try and you can see the highlights that I have made.
Then I got the below screen to confirm on what I was going to create and enable me to create it either with Resource Manager or Classis Deployment Model. In newer version Resource Manager is chosen as default for all deployment models.
In below screen I have given basic options with Name, username, my subscription, resource group, location. Once you have chosen all your settings till 5, then you will get your fully functional SQL Server 2016 RC 3 virtual machine in 10 to 15 minutes. How cool is that.
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