Azure SQL Managed Instance Updates – #MSIgnite 2024

sasapopo

Microsoft

Nov 20, 2024

GA of Instance Pools, refresh of free offer, Fabric Mirroring for SQL MI and more!

This Ignite, Azure SQL Managed Instance updates are bringing more flexibility, TCO improvements and new functionalities!

GA of Instance Pools

Instance Pools are Generally Available! Use instance pools to create cost effective 2 vCore instances. This presents an attractive option for running small SQL Server workloads in a managed service while keeping costs comparable to (or even below) the costs of running SQL Server on Azure VMs. In addition, you can leverage fast instance creation within the pool as well as the ability to move instances in and out of the pool when needed. For more details, see Instance Pools announcement blog post.

Azure SQL Managed Instance pools

Fabric Mirroring Preview

Fabric Mirroring for Azure SQL Managed Instance enables you to seamlessly replicate your operational data into Fabric OneLake and leverage the power of Microsoft Fabric for analytics, reporting, AI and more without having to set up ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) pipelines. Data is continuously replicated in near-real time into open delta format, and available to all Fabric workloads. That means your mirrored data can be analyzed with Data Warehouse in familiar T-SQL manner, and with other Fabric capabilities as well. To learn more about Fabric Mirroring available in preview for SQL MIs with update policy “always-up-to-date” see announcement blog post.

Fabric Mirroring for Azure SQL Managed Instance

Free SQL MI for everyone (almost)

With free offer you can test your SQL workloads in the cloud using Azure SQL Managed Instance for free. This refresh brings support for many subscription types such as: Enterprise Agreement Support, Azure Plan, various Visual Studio and Dev/Test subscriptions, and more. You can now also convert your Managed Instance from free to paid production in two clicks and get the 99.99% uptime SLA as well as a myriad of configuration options. More details on free SQL MI in the latest blog post.

Free Azure SQL Managed Instance

Earlier this year…

Vector and JSON support in preview

Vector support is invaluable for building AI powered applications and experiences on top of your own operational data. With the addition of native vector support it is now even easier to modernize existing applications, by adding AI capabilities that take advantage of the precious data stored in Azure SQL, either via using the new VECTOR_DISTANCE function directly, or using libraries like LangChain, Semantic Kernel and similar. Join the preview of Vector support for Azure SQL Managed Instance.

Native JSON support is another new programmability feature available in preview for Azure SQL Managed Instance. With this, processing JSON data just got more performant. All existing JSON functions support new JSON data type seamlessly, and the update is bringing some new functions as well. More about this update in the SQL MI JSON blog post.

Both Vector and JSON support previews are available for Azure SQL Managed Instance with Update Policy “Always-up-to-date”. Update Policy is and will be a prerequisite for a lot of future SQL innovation. On the other hand, security updates, patches and platform updates such as Instance Pools, Free SQL MI offer or Next-gen General Purpose are applicable to all instances, regardless of their Update Policy.

GA of Disaster Recovery with MI link

Disaster recovery capabilities with MI link for SQL Server 2022 are GA! Empower your on-premises SQL Server deployments with Azure and leverage hybrid DR capabilities to improve your resilience. To see MI link DR in action, see demos we’ve prepared for you.

Next-Gen General Purpose service tier

Next-gen General Purpose service tier brings better performance and up to 500 user databases for the same price. It enables much more flexibility, allowing you to purchase additional IOPS, without increasing reserved storage. You can also scale instances with fine-grained vCore adjustments, such as moving from 4 to 6 vCores or from 8 to 10 vCores. Moreover, instance storage limit is doubled to 32TB, and there is more! To learn about all the benefits Next-gen General Purpose is bringing, see the latest blog post and documentation.

Next-Gen General Purpose

Simplified and lower backup prices

Backup prices are now lowered and simplified for both Point-in-time restore and Long-term Retention backups across all service tiers in Azure SQL Managed Instance and Azure SQL Database. Prices have been reduced for ZRS and GZRS Backup Storage Redundancy options to match with LRS and GRS respectively. Learn more about simplified and lowered backup pricing here.