SPIRE server Microsoft SQL support & forked GORM version

[RodargDev]

I am currently working on deploying the SPIRE server in a Kubernetes cluster. I have experience using Microsoft SQL Server and would prefer to use it as the datastore instead of the other supported options. At the moment, there is no plugin implementation for SQL Server, but in theory it should be feasible since SPIRE uses GORM and the latest version of GORM provides native SQL Server support.

If I were to implement a datastore plugin for SQL Server, would a pull request for this contribution be welcomed?

While investigating this, I noticed that SPIRE is using a forked version of GORM (https://github.com/jinzhu/gorm), which may not fully support SQL Server. Is there a specific reason why this older version is still being used, and would it be possible to update GORM to a newer version so that a SQL Server plugin could be implemented?

[amartinezfayo]

Thank you @RodargDev for opening this issue.
We would definitely welcome a contribution adding support to Microsoft SQL Server.

Is there a specific reason why this older version is still being used, and would it be possible to update GORM to a newer version so that a SQL Server plugin could be implemented?

Unfortunately, updating SPIRE to GORM v2 is not a trivial task. We have been exploring this for some time (#1832) and some progress has been made, but we are not quite there yet.

@MarcosDY has been working on this and has an old branch with the progress made: https://github.com/MarcosDY/spire/tree/poc-move-to-gormv2

It seems that the main task to be able to provide Microsoft SQL Server support would be to update GORM to v2. Any contribution in that front would also be very welcome :)