We're pleased to share with you a summary of the Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server feature updates and announcements from last month, as well as the latest roadmap of upcoming features!
October 2023 Live webinar
These feature updates are also covered in our monthly Live Webinar on YouTube (Click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel!), which streams the second Wednesday of every month, at 7:30am Pacific time. Below is a link to the webinar we delivered this week:
September 2023 updates
Flexible maintenance options – Public Preview
Building on our existing system-managed and custom-managed maintenance windows, the following new flexible maintenance options aim to elevate user convenience and operational flexibility in server maintenance:
- Reschedule window: Tailor maintenance schedules to suit your business rhythm.
- On demand maintenance: Instantly initiate maintenance activities using the “Reschedule now” option.
Learn more: Concepts | Demo video
Universal geo-restore – Public Preview
If you’ve configured your server for geo-redundant backups, so far you had the ability to restore to geo-paired regions. The new universal geo-restore feature allows you to restore your source server instance to any alternate region from the list of Azure supported regions where flexible server is available. This feature can be used to strengthen your disaster recovery strategy in case of regional disasters.
Learn more: Concepts | Tutorial
On-demand backup and export – Private Preview
This feature provides you the ability to export at-moment physical backup of the server to Azure storage account (Azure blob storage) using an Azure CLI command. After export, these backups can be used for data recovery, migration, data redundancy and availability, or auditing.
Latest feature roadmap
|
Feature
|
Description
|
Release status
|
Coming soon! (Tentative timelines)
|
|
Accelerated logs
|
This feature improves database server performance of your mission-critical workloads within the Business-Critical tier by automatically storing transactional logs on a faster storage, thereby enhancing the throughput of the servers.
|
-
|
Public Preview in Q4 CY23
|
|
Long Term Retention of Backups
|
Previously, Azure Database for MySQL allowed for automated backups and on-demand backups to be retained up to 35 days. With Long Term Retention, you can now retain the backups up to 10 years, further aiding your audit and compliance needs.
|
Private Preview
|
Public Preview in Q4 CY23
|
|
Error Logs (in Server Logs)
|
This feature allows you to maintain MySQL error log files under Server logs feature and download them for up to eight days. These error logs will help you efficiently identify and troubleshoot performance and reliability issues, and proactively detect and respond to unauthorized access attempts, failed login attempts and other security-related events.
|
Private Preview
|
Public Preview in Q4 CY23
|
|
HA readable standby
|
A high availability (HA) set up in Azure Database for MySQL flexible server provisions a standby server in addition to the primary server to ensure business continuity. In addition to high availability, if the business demands scaling of read workloads, we recommend provisioning a HA-enabled read-replica to improve the performance and scale of read intensive workloads. With the HA readable standby feature, we support read capacity for your HA standby servers, without having to provision a separate read-replica. You can enjoy improved performance of the primary server as the HA standby can be used for scaling read workloads at no extra cost.
|
-
|
Private Preview in Q4 CY23
|
|
Azure MySQL Import (Single to Flexible Server Migration)
|
With Azure MySQL Import, you can migrate an Azure Database for MySQL single server to an Azure Database for MySQL flexible server by running a single CLI command! Azure MySQL Import is especially suited for bigger workloads and uses snapshot backup and restores technology to offer a simple and fast migration path to restore the source server's physical data files to the target server. Learn more.
|
Public Preview
|
General Availability in Q4 CY23
|
|
Azure MySQL Import for external migrations
|
This tooling (a single CLI command!) will allow you to achieve simple and fast migration of your heavy workloads (>1TB) from external sources to Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server. Azure MySQL Import will use your physical backup copy stored in Azure Blob storage to provision and restore to MySQL flexible server.
|
-
|
Private Preview in Q4 CY23
|
|
MySQL Discovery & Assessment in Azure Migrate
|
With this functionality, you can use Azure Migrate to discover MySQL servers in your environment, assess them by identifying their compatibility for moving to Azure Database for MySQL, and receive compute and storage SKU recommendations along with their costs.
|
-
|
Private Preview in Q4 CY23
|
|
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
|
Support for Azure Database for MySQL in Microsoft Defender for Cloud will enable you to easily detect anomalous activities indicating unusual and potentially harmful attempts to access or exploit databases, without the need for advanced security monitoring systems or security experts.
|
-
|
Private Preview in Q1 CY24
|
Conclusion
As we continue to work on new features and functionalities, your feedback is very critical for our improvement. If you wish to enroll in Private Preview for any of the above features, or if you have any suggestions for or queries about the service, email us at AskAzureDBforMySQL@service.microsoft.com.
To learn more about what's new with Flexible Server, see What's new in Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server. Stay tuned for more updates and announcements by following us on social media: YouTube | LinkedIn | Twitter.
Thank you!
