For some years Microsoft Azure has been offering several different deployment and management choices for the SQL Server engine hosted on Azure. With the release of the Azure Arc support for SQL Server, the range of different options has grown even further. This article should help you make sense of the different choices and assist in your decision-making process.
The following diagram shows a high level map of the options available on Azure or via Azure Arc.
As you can see, both on-Azure and off-Azure options offer you a choice between IaaS and PaaS. The IaaS category targets the applications that cannot be changed because of the SQL version dependency, ISV certification or simply because the lack of in-house expertise to modernize. The PaaS category targets the applications that will benefit from modernization by leveraging the latest SQL features, gaining a better SLA and reducing the management complexity.
SQL Server on Azure VM
SQL Server on Azure VM allows you to run SQL Server inside a fully managed virtual machine (VM) in Azure. It is best for lift-and-shift ready applications that would benefit from re-hosting to the cloud without any changes. You will maintain the full administrative control over the application’s lifecycle, the database engine and the underlying OS. You can choose when to start maintenance/patching, change the recovery model to simple or bulk-logged, pause or start the service when needed, and you can fully customize the SQL Server database engine. This additional control involves the added responsibility to manage the virtual machine.
Azure Arc enabled SQL Server
Azure Arc enabled SQL Server (preview) is designed for the SQL Servers running in your own infrastructure or hosted on another public cloud. It allows you to connect the SQL Servers to Azure and leverage the Azure services for the benefit of these applications. The connection and registration with Azure does not impact the SQL Server itself, does not require any data migration and causes no downtime. At present, it offers the following benefits:
- You can manage your entire global inventory of the SQL Servers using Azure Portal as a central management dashboard.
- You can better protect the applications using the advanced security services from Azure Security Center and Azure Sentinel.
- You can regularly validate the health of your SQL Server environment using the On-demand SQL Assessment service, remediate risks and improve performance.
Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL Database is a relational database-as-a-service (DBaaS) hosted in Azure. It is optimized for building modern cloud applications using a fully managed SQL Server database engine, based on the same relational database engine found in the latest stable Enterprise Edition of SQL Server. SQL Database has two deployment options built on standardized hardware and software that is owned, hosted, and maintained by Microsoft.
Unlike SQL Server, it offers limited control over the database engine and the underlying OS, and is optimized for automatic management of the scale up or out operations based on the current demand and bills for the resource consumption on a pay-as-you-go basis. SQL Database has some additional features that are not available in SQL Server, such as built-in high availability, intelligence, and management. It includes a 99.995% availability SLA.
Azure SQL Database offers the following deployment options:
- Single database with its own set of resources managed via a logical SQL server. This option is optimized for modern cloud-born applications that require a fixed set of compute and storage resources. Hyperscale and serverless options are available.
- Elastic pool, which is a collection of databases with a shared set of resources managed via a logical SQL server. Single databases can be moved into and out of an elastic pool. This option is optimized for modern cloud-born applications using the multi-tenant SaaS application pattern. Elastic pools provide a cost-effective solution for managing the performance of multiple databases that have variable usage patterns.
Azure SQL Managed Instance
Azure SQL Managed Instance is designed for new applications or existing on-premises applications that want migrate to the cloud with minimal changes to use the latest stable SQL Server features. This option provides all of the PaaS benefits of Azure SQL Database but adds capabilities such as native virtual network and near 100% compatibility with on-premises SQL Server. Instances of SQL Managed Instance provide full access to the database engine and feature compatibility for migrating SQL Servers but do not offer admin access to the underlying OS. Azure SQL Managed Instance includes a 99.99% availability SLA.
Azure Arc enabled SQL Managed Instance
Azure Arc enabled SQL Managed Instance (preview) is designed to provide the existing SQL server applications an option to migrate to the latest version of the SQL Server engine and gain the PaaS style built in management capabilities without moving outside of the existing infrastructure. The latter allows the customers to maintain the data sovereignty and meet other compliance criteria. This is achieved by leveraging the Kubernetes platform with Azure data services, which can be deployed on any infrastructure.
At present, it offers the following benefits:
- You can easily create, remove, scale up or scale down a SQL Managed Instance within minutes.
- You can setup periodic usage data uploads to ensure that Azure bills you monthly for the SQL Server license based on the actual usage of the managed instances (pay-as-you-go). You can do it even you are running the applications in an air-gapped environment.
- You can leverage the capabilities of latest version of SQL Server that is automatically kept up to date by the platform. No need to manage upgrades, updates or patches.
- Built-in management services for monitoring, backup/restore, and high availability.
Next steps
For related material, see the following articles:
- Learn more about Azure Arc
- Learn more about Azure SQL
- Learn more about Azure Security Center
- Learn more about Azure Sentinel