A variety of open source databases provide strong support on Windows. Given the broad set of open source databases that have full Windows support, and the limited differences between running these databases on Linux vs. Windows, an organization should feel confident that there is no need to migrate from Windows to Linux simply to deploy a workload that relies on an open source database.

Given that from time to time IT professionals will be under pressure to support these open source databases, it is important to realize that one can leverage open source software in a Microsoft environment successfully without having to forgo the many benefits (management tools, patching processes, and provisioning) of standardizing on Windows.