RDX takes a deep-dive look into the three cloud platforms we have available for SQL Server – SQL Server on IaaS, Amazon RDS for SQL Server and Azure SQL DB. We evaluate features, costs, migration utilities, toolsets, ongoing support requirements and the pros and cons of each architecture. Learn from experts who support dozens of systems on all 3 platforms!

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© 2018
Selecting a SQL Server Cloud Platform
IaaS, Amazon RDS or Azure SQL DB?
ARCHITECTURES FEATURES COSTS MIGRATION PROCEDURES ONGOING SUPPORT
Chris Foot
RDX VP of Technologies
www.rdx.com

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© 2018© 2018
20
YEARS OF
SERVICE DELIVERY
EXPERIENCE
Database Platforms
SQL Server
Oracle
PostgreSQL*
DB2
MongoDB*
MySQL*
Operating Systems
Unix/Linux*Windows
Enterprise Applications
SQL Server BI
Oracle EBS
SharePoint
Exchange
Environment
600+ Customers
10,000 Servers
200+ DBAs
Fortune 100s
Startups
All Verticals
Cloud Systems
Amazon AWS/RDS
Oracle Cloud DB
DBaaS
Msoft Azure
IaaS
Multi-Cloud
* All distributions
The Largest Pure Play Provider of
Managed Data Infrastructure Services

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Database
Administration
Cloud Migration &
Administration
Operating System
Support
Business Intelligence
& Reporting
Business Applications
Support
Monitoring & Problem
Resolution
Full SupportSupplemental Support
Core Services

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Including Cloud DBaaS and IaaS Environments
Database & OS
Maintenance
Backup &
Recovery
Installs,
Upgrades &
Patching
Change
Management
Monitoring,
Alerting & Event
Management
Performance
Tuning
Assessments &
Health Checks
Troubleshooting
Database
Security &
Auditing
High Availability
System Design
& Deployment
Cloud
Migrations and
Support
Advanced
Architectures
Strategic
Planning

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Auditing and Compliance
OSConfiguration
Disk Configuration
CPU
Pricing Models
Monitoring
Memory
Administration
Access Mechanisms
ArchitectureDesign
Policies&Procedures
Tools
Training Security
EdgeTechnologies
Backup/Recovery
StaffRoles
Redundancy
Provisioning
Tuning
Cloud DB
Systems
are Architectures,
Not Products

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Types of Cloud Platforms
On-Premise
• Server is onsite at your physical plant
• You provide server room, power, air, connectivity…
• YOU support all hardware
• YOU support all software from OS up, including database
• Server is hosted by a provider
• You rent their hardware
• They provide server room,
power, air, connectivity….
• PROVIDER supports hardware
• YOU provide and support all
software from OS up, including
database
• Server is hosted by a provider
• You rent their hardware
• They provide server room, air,
connectivity….
• PROVIDER supports hardware
• YOU RENT the OS and database
• PROVIDER supports OS and
database software
DBaaSIaaS

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• New Staffing Roles and
Responsibilities
• Policies and Procedures
• Impact on Existing Tools and
Technologies
• Change Management
Cloud DBs Will Change the Way Your
Organization Provides Support
• Costing Models
• Security
• Training and Education
• Become More Reliant on
3rd Parties
• Performance
• Vendor Lock-In
• DB Features
• Elasticity
• Scalability
• Server Redundancy
• Disaster Recovery
• Storage
• Compute
• Provisioning
• Monitoring Tools
• Admin Tools
• Backup
• Security
• Data Access
Greater Impact DBaaS
Less Impact IaaS

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Your Costing Models Will Change
and Become More Complex
• # Instances
• # Regions
• On-Demand/Reserved
• Licensing Model
• Computing Resources
• Storage Amount
• Storage Type
• Backup Retention
• Data Transfers
• IOPS
• Failover Configuration
• Additional Monitoring
YOU MUST UNDERSTAND WHAT
YOU ARE BEING CHARGED FOR
YOU MUST UNDERSTAND WHAT
YOU ARE BEING CHARGED FOR
• # Instances
• # Regions
• On-Demand/Reserved
• Licensing Model
• Computing Resources
• Storage Amount
• Storage Type
• Backup Retention
• Data Transfers
• IOPS
• Failover Configuration
• Additional Monitoring
Greater Impact DBaaS
Less Impact IaaS

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Comparing Architectures
On-Premises
• Low conversion costs
• Most control
• Higher administration costs
• Hardware and software costs
• Purchase licenses
• No system SLAs
• Fewest system provided automations
• No changes to existing support
procedures
• Build your own HA and DR (hardware and
software)
• No changes to migrate DB
• Slowest application time-to-market
Infrastructure-as-a-Service
• Some conversion costs
• Moderate control
• Lower administration costs
• Software costs
• BYOL
• SLA for server only
• Some system provided automations
• Minimal changes to existing support
procedures
• Design, install and configure your own
HA and DR (software)
• Minimal to no changes to migrate on-
premises DB
• Moderate application time-to-market
Database-as-a-Service
• Highest conversion costs
• Less control
• Lowest administration costs
• Software costs
• Rent, BYOL (Amazon)
• SLA for entire environment
• Most system provided automations
• Most changes to existing support
procedures
• System provided HA and DR (design and
configure only)
• Changes often required to migrate on-
premises DB
• Fastest application time-to-market

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IaaS vs DBaaS
Infrastructure-as-a-Service
• Some conversion costs
• Have to purchase DB licenses, BYOL/rent OS license options
• Able to install any software you choose – databases, applications,
third-party tools
• Easy to integrate your on-premises toolsets – monitoring, security,
application development
• Allows you to maintain tight control of OS and DB configuration
• Tight control over database and OS utility execution – backups,
index maintenance, patching, upgrades
• Able to leverage cloud benefits that include elasticity, scalability
and flexibility
• Able to leverage features to reduce administrative time (varies
according to vendor and particular offering selected
Database-as-a-Service
• Database products are limited by vendor offering
• Rental fees include DB and OS
• Provider assumes greater administrative control over your
environment (software installation, DB and OS configuration,
patching, DB upgrades)
• Complex systems (HA, DR) are more easily configured
• Data geo-redundancy is often inherent to offering
• Provides backup and maintenance utility automations
• Pricing can be complex and is configured by selecting tiers
based on CPU, memory, I/O, and disk consumption
• If you are renting the software, when relationship is over, you
don’t own anything

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DBACloud Provider
• Offers DB and OS licenses as part of rental
• Robust compute and storage environment
• Operating system and database installed and ready for use
• Configures DB
• Patches and upgrades OS and DB software
• Provides database maintenance automations (depending on
cloud vendor and DB product)
• Includes administrative interfaces and monitoring tools
• Provides problem analysis information
• Offers increasing number of automations (backup, tuning,
problem analysis identification and resolution advice)
• Uses cloud DBMS to create instances and databases
• Monitors resource usage (costs)
• Creates users
• Grants database security
• Creates schema objects – tables, indexes, views (there’s a
bunch...)
• Loads data and ensures data transfers to other systems are
configured and working
• Works with developers
• Monitors database availability
• Tunes application workloads
• Troubleshoots database (uses automated recommendations if
available)
• Troubleshoots jobs accessing DB
• Tunes SQL statements
• Debugs workload performance problems
• Configures backups, performs recoveries
• Configures HA systems
• Schedules DB maintenance jobs using vendor utilities
• And the list goes on……
DBA Responsibilities for DBaaS

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Coding, Administration and Testing
100% App Code
Transportability
Database
Features
DBaaS Product Features
and Functionality
Don’t Always Match
On-Premises Counterparts

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Selecting IaaS or DBaaS
• What is your cloud strategy?
• Testing the waters
• Choose between cloud and on-premises for best fit
• Intend to have a strong cloud presence
• Cloud first
• What cloud benefits do you want to leverage?
• Reduce hardware/software costs
• Reduce human support costs
• Focus on business, not system support
• Improve performance and availability
• Increase flexibility and agility
• Faster application time-to-market
• Quickly leverage complex architectures
• What is your experience level with cloud systems?
• How big of an impact (change management, training,
polices/procedures, roles/responsibilities) on your IT shop are
you willing to incur?
• What application development platforms do you use?
• How much control do you want to relinquish and how much
responsibility for your systems are you comfortable sharing?
• What on-premises software tools do you use?
• Is your data controlled by internal, industry-specific or
governmental regulatory requirements?
• How sensitive is the data you are storing?
• What auditing requirements are you required to meet?
• Do you standardize on one DB vendor or support multiple?
• Do you want to consolidate with one cloud provider or are you
comfortable with multiple?
• Do you intend to migrate DB, apps or both?
• What amount of DB and app changes are you willing to make
to migrate the system to the cloud?
• What is your budget?
• Retrain staff, organizational role and unit changes
• Changes to process and documentation
• Changes for application rewrites, cloud data transfers, on-
premises/cloud DB feature mismatch
• What are your HA and DR requirements?

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Amazon RDS Databases
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/CHAP_SQLServer.ht
ml

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Administration
Amazon RDS Features
Environment
• Pay for what you use
• Free tiers available to evaluate environment
• Pay as you go and reserved options
• Robust cost monitoring and billing alerts
• Many different, global regions to choose from
• Robust compute and storage environment
• Many different sizing and configuration options available
• Able to configure storage, IO, CPU/MEM separately
• Ability to scale resource allocations
• Offers DB and OS licenses as part of rental
• Operating system and database installed and ready for use
• Support for SQL Server (2008 R2, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2017)
including Express, Web, Standard and Enterprise
• Provides many of the inherent on-premises DB product features
• Includes administrative interfaces and monitoring tools
• Able to add custom monitoring metrics
• Initially configures DB with ability to customize parameters
• Patches and upgrades OS and DB software
• Automated and manual (snapshot) backups
• Able to configure backup retention
• Multi-Availability Zones facilitate HA deployments
• Automatic failure detection
• Automatic replacement of compute instance in the event of a
hardware failure
• Able to leverage Virtual Private Cloud to provide network isolation
• Identity Access Management provides resource access control
• SSL certificates are automatically generated
• Key Management Service encrypts data at rest/in-transit
• Also supports SQL Server Transparent Data Encryption (TDE)
• Record and audit DB instance changes using AWS Config
• Configurable maintenance windows
• Traditional access tools (SSMS, SQL Workbench) can be used
• SQL Server Agents are available

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Amazon Infrastructure*
* Source https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/

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Amazon RDS Environment
Availability Zone
RDS Standby
Instance
Mirroring
Availability Zone
RDS Primary
Instance
Failover
• Instance is your DB environment
• Costing based on instance hours, storage, I/O, backup
storage, data transfer per month
• Scale resources up/down at instance level
• Multi-AZ is optional but highly recommended
• Uses SQL Server Database Mirroring for Multi-AZ,
which Microsoft is replacing with Always On (Amazon
currently does not support Always On)
• Availability Zones are independent locations in a region
• Multi-AZ with mirroring supports one standby mirror
• Standby mirrors can not be used for read access
• Redirecting connections does not require manual
intervention
• Can not create standby in different region
• DB instance event generated during failover
DescriptionAWSRegion

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Amazon RDS Toolsets
AWS Management Console
• Used as starting point to manage all of
your Amazon services
• Provides links to individual service
consoles (compute, storage, security,
application and RDS)
• Able to perform a wide range of
monitoring and administration activities
• Mobile application available
• Able to organize services into resource
groups and apply changes to all members
• Can use tags to create custom resource
groups
RDS Console
• Focus is on database management and
monitoring
• Can create database events for
notifications (availability, security,
recovery status..)
• Able to activate RDS Enhanced
Monitoring for more detailed diagnostic
information
• Provides a recommendations page that
offers hints and tips to improve your RDS
environment’s performance, availability
and security
• Performance Insights, a very robust
performance drilldown tool for SQL Server
is coming
CloudWatch
• CloudWatch monitors your Amazon
environment including RDS
• Provides system wide visibility
• Able to access metrics from console,
CLI, API and SDK
• RDS sends metrics to CloudWatch every
60 seconds
• RDS metrics include burst balance, CPU,
memory, connection, IOPs, read/write
latency…
• Able to create CloudWatch alarms based
on events and thresholds

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• Payment Options
• On-Demand
• No commitment
• Pay by the hour
• More expensive than reserved
• Estimate usage per month
• Reserved Instance
• 1 and 3 year terms
• More you pay up-front = more cost effective
• Estimate usage per month
• BYOL vs Rent Database
• Database Edition
• Will affect instance Class available (and costs)
• I.E – SQL Server Enterprise vs SQL Server Web Edition
• DB Instance Classes
• Examples: db.m4.xlarge, db.t2.small
• Controls
• # of virtual CPUs
• ECU – horsepower of Virtual CPUs
• Allocated memory in Gibibytes
• Ability to leverage Virtual Private Cloud
• EBS Capable – volumes get dedicated additional I/O
• Max bandwidth in megabits/second
• Network performance
• DB = Instance
• Alpha Character describing instance
• M = Standard Instance Class
• Provides a balance of compute, memory, and
network resources
• R = Memory Optimized Class
• Memory intensive instance (like a DBMS)
• T = Baseline Performance Level Class with ability
to burst to full CPU utilization
• Numeric value describing generation
• Higher number = more current generation
• Better resource utilization reduces costs
• Keyword describing resource allocations
(performance)
db.m4.10xlarge
Amazon Costing Factors

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Amazon Disk Storage
General
Purpose SSD
Provisioned
IOPS SSD
• Good choice for small to mid-sized DBs. Moderate I/O
• Select from 20 GIB to 16 TIB of storage based on DB Product/Edition – NOT GIGs and TBs
• Charged for storage – not I/Os consumed
• Get 3IOPS per GIB. Larger volumes = better performance
• Can burst to 3,000 IOPS
• Burst bucket – exceed baseline IOPS – withdraw IOPS credits from bucket. Low periods =
add to bucket. Bucket goes to 0 credits = baseline performance
• Good choice for applications that require fast and consistent I/O performance
• Configure IOPS rates and storage during instance configuration. Can be scaled
• Specify I/O capacity from 1,000 IOPS to 40,000 IOPS based on DB Product/Edition
• Amazon recommends using M4, M3, M2, R4, R3 instance classes as they are optimized for
Provisioned IOPs storage. Other instance classes aren’t
• Don’t use it – you lose it

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Amazon Data Transfer Charges
• Amazon provides detailed pricing pages for every RDS DB
product they offer
• Link is provided in upcoming slide
• REVIEW the pricing overview and database product
specific pages
• At the bottom of the DB specific pricing page, you will see
data transfer costs
• There are some transfers that you think you will pay for –
but you won’t
• Vice/Versa for other data transfer costs
• These can change
• Most costs are minimal, but its all dependent on data
volumes
Amazon Total Costs Include Data Transfer

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Amazon Cost Calculator – What If Scenarios
DB Product Pricing Page

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Amazon Helpful Links
Description Link
DETAILED pricing for each RDS DB product https://aws.amazon.com/rds/pricing/
Instance Class Definition/Description https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/instance-types.html
Instance Class Listing for RDS DBs https://aws.amazon.com/rds/instance-types/
Instance Class DETAILED Specifications https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/Concepts.DBInstanceClass.html
Monthly Cost Calculator http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html
Storage Options and IOPS Performance https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/CHAP_Storage.html
Elastic Block Storage Overview https://aws.amazon.com/ebs/
Mutli-Availability Zone Overview https://aws.amazon.com/rds/details/multi-az/
Virtual Private Cloud https://aws.amazon.com/vpc/
Cloud Watch Monitoring Tool Pricing https://aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/pricing/
Amazon RDS User Guide https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/Welcome.html
Amazon RDS FAQs https://aws.amazon.com/rds/faqs/

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SQL Server On-Premises vs Amazon RDS
Feature Differences
• Always On
• Stretch Database
• Backing up to Microsoft Azure Blob
Storage
• Buffer Pool extension
• BULK INSERT and
OPENROWSET(BULK...) features
• Data Quality Services
• Database Log Shipping
• Database Mail
• Distributed Queries (i.e., Linked
Servers)
• Distribution Transaction Coordinator
(MSDTC)
• File Tables
• FILESTREAM support
• Maintenance Plans
• Performance Data Collector
• Policy-Based Management
• PolyBase
• R
• Replication
• Resource Governor
• SQL Server Audit
• Server-level Triggers
• Service Broker endpoints
• T-SQL Endpoints (all operations using
CREATE ENDPOINT are unavailable)
• WCF Data Services
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/CHAP_SQLServer.h
tml

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Amazon Database Migration ServiceAmazon Schema Conversion Tool
• SCT is free to use
• Converts schema objects including tables, indexes, views,
stored procedures, and functions
• Scans application source code to identify and convert
SQL statements
• Compares database schemas
• Use mapping rules to change data types, move and
rename objects, add/replace/remove prefixes and suffixes
for databases, schemas, tables and columns
• Generates schema conversion reports listing objects that
can not be converted
• Generates SQL statement conversion reports listing code
that can not be converted
• Extension pack allows you to emulate on-premises DB
functions (job scheduling, email using Lambda functions)
• Amazon provides common conversions issue for each DB
product
• Pricing is per hour based on instance size
• Target = Aurora Free for 6 months. 9 with extension
• Creates only those schema objects required to
successfully replicate data
• Seeds data and then replicates changes
• Able to monitor data transfer problems and performance
issues
• Can create an assessment report for migration tasks that
could affect migration process
• Can choose objects to be migrated
• Can limit rows migrated (good for initial testing
• Filter based on column values
• Amazon provides several security features to protect
data transfers
• Able to activate data validation which is performed after
each table is migrated (adds time to process)
Amazon DBaaS Migration Tools

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Source – On Prem, RDS, EC2 Target - RDS
Oracle Database Amazon Aurora, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB
Oracle Data Warehouse, Teradata, IBM Netezza,
Greenplum, HPE Vertica
Amazon Redshift
Microsoft SQL Server
Amazon Aurora, Amazon Redshift, MySQL,
PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Microsoft SQL Server
MySQL and MariaDB PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL Amazon Aurora, MySQL, MariaDB
Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL
Sequences, user-defined types, synonyms, packages, stored procedures, functions, triggers, schemas, tables, indexes, views, sort
and distribution keys. These are just examples. Check documentation for more information.
Amazon Schema Conversion Tool

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Source
On-premises and Amazon EC2 (watch versions):
Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SAP ADE and
MongoDB
Azure SQL DB
Amazon RDS (watch versions):
Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL
Amazon Aurora
Target
On-premises and Amazon EC2 (watch versions):
Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL
Amazon Aurora, Redshift, DynamoDB, Azure SQL DB
Amazon RDS (watch versions):
Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL
Amazon Database Migration Service

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Microsoft Azure Cloud DB Offerings
Azure DBaaS Databases
CosmosDB
Warehouse
SQL Data
Table Storage

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Administration
Azure SQL DB Features
Environment
• Pay for what you use
• Free tiers available to evaluate environment
• Two pricing models – vCore and DTU based
• Robust cost monitoring and billing alerts
• Many global regions available
• Robust compute and storage environment
• Many different sizing and configuration options available
• Able to configure compute and storage separately (vCore only)
• Ability to easily scale resource allocations
• Azure Hybrid Benefit allows you to use on-premises licenses to
reduce cloud licensing costs
• Provides many of the inherent on-premises DB product features
• Includes administrative interfaces and monitoring tools
customized for Azure SQL DB
• Able to add custom monitoring metrics
• Managed Instances combine DBaaS benefits with on-premises
compatibility
• Patches and upgrades OS and DB software
• Automated and manual backups
• Able to configure backup retention
• Offers elastic pools which allows a group of DBs to share resources
• Intelligent advisors provide tuning recommendations
• Auto tuning capabilities include auto index management and
automatic plan correction
• Read scale out and sharding provides horizontal scalability
• Robust HA options available
• Advanced Threat Protection provides data classification,
vulnerability scanning and threat monitoring
• Advanced security options include Transparent Data Encryption,
Always Encrypted and Data Masking
• Able to leverage Virtual Private Network to provide network isolation

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vCore (in preview)
DTUs and vCore Cost Models
DTU
• Combines compute, IOPs and storage into one cost
measurement
• Can pay extra for additional storage
• Supports single database and elastic pools
• Does not support managed instances
• Offers basic, standard and premium service tiers, which control:
• Features available (in-memory, columnstore)
• Backup retention periods
• I/O throughput and latency
• DTU and storage limits
• Performance tiers are a combination of DTUs + storage
• Unable to use Azure Hybrid Benefit, which allows you to us on-
premises licensing to reduce cloud costs
• More complex to calculate and forecast costs than vCore model
• Separates compute (memory and CPU) from storage
• Able to rent vCores, which are logical CPUs
• Will also be charged for IOPs
• Offers general purpose and business critical service tiers
• Supports single database and elastic pools
• Supports managed instances
• Able to use Azure Hybrid Benefit, which allows you to us on-
premises licensing to reduce cloud costs
• Performance tiers are combinations of CPUs and memory
allocations

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* Source: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/regions/
Azure Regions
Azure Infrastructure*

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Azure SQL Managed Instances
• GA in 2018
• SQL Server “Instance as a Service”
• Same architecture as PaaS
• All PaaS features
• Near 100% compatibility with on-premises
• Easy migration with DMS
• Native backup/restore
• Log Shipping
• More control compared to traditional Azure DBaaS
• Lower costs when compared to SQL Server on VMs
• SQL Agent, 3-part names, DBMail, CDC…
• Native support for virtual networks (injected into
your VNET)
• Allows private IP addresses
• SSIS/SSAS/SSRS – Not available
Platform as a Service Benefits
On-Premises Compatibility
+ Azure DBaaS
Managed
Instance
Managed
Instance
Elastic
Pool
Single DB
Azure Managed Instances (Preview)

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Elastic PoolsSingle Database
• Multiple databases
• Share resources and costs amongst group
• Good for DBs that have spikey workloads
• Performance levels control sizing of other
resources
• Disk storage
• In-Memory allocations
• #DBs in pools
• Max requests, logins, sessions
• Min and Max eDTUs
• Single database
• No resource/cost sharing
• Performance Levels control sizing of
other resources
• Disk storage
• In-Memory allocations
• Max requests, logins, sessions
• Min and Max DTUs
Azure Portal provides pool recommendations

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High Availability/Business Continuity Options
• Offers standard/general purpose and premium/business
critical availability options
• Standard/General Purpose - provides 99.99% of
availability but with some potential performance
degradation during maintenance activities
• Premium/Business Critical - also provides 99.99%
availability with minimal performance impact on your
workload even during maintenance activities
• Premium’s high availability feature is
implemented using standard Always On
Availability Groups
• Can use replica for read only access
• All systems must be in the same region
• Able to configure traditional and geo-replicated backups
• Database restoration Estimated Recovery Times and
Recovery Time Objectives are influenced by service
tier selection
• Active geo-replication is available on all tiers and
provides up to 4 secondaries with read access
• Manual failover from 1 of 4 readable secondaries in
same or different region. Need to update
connection strings to point to new primary
• Other secondaries are auto-linked to new primary
• Azure SQL DB Failover Groups (extension of geo-
replication)
• Systems can be in same or different regions
• Readable secondaries
• One failover secondary in a different region is used
for automatic failover
• Configure auto-failover polices that trigger
activation
• Configure one address that does not need to be
updated during failover. Like a Windows Cluster
Name…

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Database Transaction Units
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/
Azure SQL DB DTU Cost Calculations
• Region
• Single DB, Elastic Pool
• Basic, Standard or Premium Service Tier
• Performance Level
• Number of databases or pools
• Hours, Days, Months
• Long term Retention
• Weekly, Monthly, Yearly backup retention
• Can purchase additional storage
• Charged for outbound data transfers
• Secondary active geo-replication databases are
priced at 100 percent of primary database prices
The cost of geo-replication traffic is included
• Advanced Threat Protection is an additional cost

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Database Transaction Units
Azure SQL DB vCore Cost Calculations
• Single DB, Elastic Pool, Managed Instance
• General Purpose or Business Critical Service Tier
• Performance Level is number of CPUs
• Memory based on number of CPUs
• Storage becomes option
• IO consumption is free during preview
• Charged for outbound data transfers
• Secondary active geo-replication databases are
priced at 100 percent of primary database prices
The cost of geo-replication traffic is included
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/

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Azure SQL DB Helpful Links
Description Link
Azure SQL DB Pricing https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/sql-database/managed/
Azure SQL DB Cost Calculator for “What if” scenarios https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/
Azure Hybrid Benefit Savings Calculator https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/hybrid-benefit/
vCores vs DTUs https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-service-tiers#understanding-dtus
SLAs for Azure SQL DB https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/support/legal/sla/sql-database/v1_1/
Azure SQL DB/Elastic Pool, Managed Instance, IaaS
comparison
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-paas-vs-sql-server-iaas
Azure SQL DB Documentation https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/
Database FAQs https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-faq
SQL Server On-Premises vs Azure SQL DB Feature
Comparison
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-features
Migrating to Azure SQL DB https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-cloud-migrate
Managed Instances (In Preview) https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-managed-instance
Azure SQL DB Automatic Tuning Features https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-automatic-tuning

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Performance Features
• Able to easily increase or decrease resource allocations
• Scale out using Elastic Database features (sharding)
• In-memory capabilities
• Robust array of performance monitoring dashboards,
drilldowns, metrics and visuals
• Azure Intelligent Insights
• Automatic index management (not maintenance)
• Plan regression
• Robust monitoring alert configurations

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Performance Monitoring
• Traditional tuning strategy of
starting with high-level information
and drilling down into specific
details
• Robust array of performance
monitoring dashboards, drilldowns,
metrics and visuals
• Query Performance Insights
accesses the Query Store to
provide individual query
performance data and
recommendations
• Create monitoring metric threshold
alerts (DTU, CPU, I/O, failed
connections, storage)
• Metrics can be logged to Azure
Event Hubs, Azure Log Analytics
and Azure Storage
* Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-
database-performance
Query Performance Insights*

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• Azure’s monitoring process
continuously analyzes performance
• Learns about the database’s
workload characteristics
• Tuning activities include:
• Index creation
• Index deletion
• Plan regression
• Actions that don’t improve
performance are rolled back
• Can be set to perform all steps
automatically
Monitor
Learn
Adjust
Verify
Index/Plan
Management
Automatic Management
Automatic Tuning Features

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Sharding
• Data is distributed to shards based on a
shard key (individual key, range, hash)
• The shard map manager contains global
mapping information about all shards
(DBs) in a shard set
• Shard databases have identical structures
• Elastic queries, transactions and jobs are
used to access the shards in the shard set
• Split-Merge utility and Elastic Database
client libraries used to manage data and
sharded environment
• Good for:
• Large amounts of data
• High transaction throughput
• SAS multi-tenant applications
• Split data to different geographic
areas
Shard
1
Horizontally
Scalable
Shard
3
Shard
2
Shard
X
Shard Key
1-100
Shard Key
101-200
Shard Key
201-300
Elastic Query
Elastic Transactions
Elastic Jobs
Horizontal Sharding

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Six Ways RDX is Better for Business
Automatic Threat Detection
• $15/Month per server
• Able to configure email alerts for a wide
range of security events
• Notifications include all of the
information you need to begin your
analysis
• The alerts provide recommendations to
help investigation and mitigate impact
• Links to SQL audit records during time of
the event
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-threat-
detection
Automatic Threat Detection

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RDX Recommendation
• Always On Avail Groups
• Attach a Database
• BACKUP Command
• Change Data Capture*
• Cross Database Queries*
• Cross Database
Transactions*
• Database Mail*
• Database Mirroring
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-features
• Database Snapshots
• Event Notifications
• Distributed Transactions
• Extended Stored Procedures
• Filestream
• Linked Servers
• Log Shipping
• Polybase
• Policy Based Management
• RESTORE Command*
• Semantic Search
• Service Broker*
• SQL Server Agent*
• SQL Server Profiler*
• Windows Server Failover
Clustering
SQL Server On-Premises vs Azure SQL DB
Feature Differences
* Available in Managed Instances

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Microsoft DBaaS Migration Utilities
Data Migration Assistant
• Downtime required
• Identifies cloud compatibility issues
• DMA can also perform the analysis and
generate report on what is not
compatible with Azure SQL Database
(DBaaS) without executing migration
• Migrates schema, data, users, server
roles and logons
Data Migration Service
• Uses output generated by Data Migration
Assistant
• Azure Portal Service that converts
databases from on-premises to cloud
• Provides ongoing replication to
synchronize on-premises and cloud
databases
• Source: currently supports SQL Server,
Oracle and MySQL
• Target: Azure SQL DB
Transactional Replication
• No downtime
• Azure SQL Database becomes a
subscriber to the SQL Server on-premises
instance
• Requires that a new snapshot be taken
and applied
• Database can be online but it may impact
performance
• Perform snapshot off-hours

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Microsoft Data Migration Assistant

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Microsoft Database Migration Service

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© 2018
RDX’s Goal is to Become the Cloud Advisor
Our Customers Can’t Do Without
What We Learn From Our Customers
You may not want to do that…
• Support best practices
• Security procedures
• Best architecture implementations
• Product selection, implementation and usage
• What products work together
• Software combinations (best Tech Stack)
• Recurring issues
• Problem prevention
Benefits All Customers

48. October Presentation
Azure SQL DB – James Donahoe and Bill Wolf
The RDX Report
Top 10 DBaaS Migration Mistakes, RightScale Cloud Comparison
Tool, Rise of Open Source Cloud Databases
LinkedIn
Top 10 DBaaS Migration Mistakes, Selecting Cloud DBMS,
NoSQL Architectures, Database Security Series, Improving
Customer Service
20YEARS OF
SERVICE DELIVERY
EXPERIENCE
cfoot@rdx.com