James Serra discusses the deployment of SQL Server on Azure virtual machines, highlighting his extensive experience and expertise in data solutions. The document outlines best practices for data migration, VM scaling, and licensing while detailing features and architecture of Azure VMs, including storage options and high availability strategies. It provides practical methods for various data migration scenarios and emphasizes the importance of automated backup and recovery options in cloud environments.

1. James Serra
Implement SQL Server on an
Azure VM

2. About Me
 Microsoft, Big Data Evangelist
 In IT for 30 years, worked on many BI and DW projects
 Worked as desktop/web/database developer, DBA, BI and DW architect and developer, MDM
architect, PDW/APS developer
 Been perm employee, contractor, consultant, business owner
 Presenter at PASS Business Analytics Conference, PASS Summit, Enterprise Data World conference
 Certifications: MCSE: Data Platform, Business Intelligence; MS: Architecting Microsoft Azure
Solutions, Design and Implement Big Data Analytics Solutions, Design and Implement Cloud Data
Platform Solutions
 Blog at JamesSerra.com
 Former SQL Server MVP
 Author of book “Reporting with Microsoft SQL Server 2012”

3. Agenda
 Azure VMs
 Migrating data
 Scaling VMs
 SQL Server VM features
 VM storage
 HA/DR architectures
 Best practices

4. Who manages what?
Infrastructure
as a Service
Storage
Servers
Networking
O/S
Middleware
Virtualization
Data
Applications
Runtime
ManagedbyMicrosoft
Youscale,make
resilient&manage
Platform
as a Service
Scale,Resilienceand
managementbyMicrosoft
Youmanage
Storage
Servers
Networking
O/S
Middleware
Virtualization
Applications
Runtime
Data
On Premises
Physical / Virtual
Youscale,makeresilientandmanage
Storage
Servers
Networking
O/S
Middleware
Virtualization
Data
Applications
Runtime
Software
as a Service
Storage
Servers
Networking
O/S
Middleware
Virtualization
Applications
Runtime
Data
Scale,Resilienceand
managementbyMicrosoft
Windows Azure
Virtual Machines
Windows Azure
Cloud Services

5. Virtual Machine components
Flexible,
Scalable CPU
and memory
Standard and
Premium
Storage tiers
Internal/External
Networking

6.  VM hosted on Microsoft Azure Infrastructure (“IaaS”)
• From Microsoft images (gallery) or your own images (custom)
SQL 2008R2 / 2012 / 2014 / 2016 Web / Standard / Enterprise
Images refreshed with latest version, SP, CU
• Fast provisioning (~10 minutes).
• Accessible via RDP and Powershell
•
 Pay per use
• Per minute (only when running)
• Cost depends on size and licensing
• EA customers can use existing SQL licenses (BYOL)
• Network: only outgoing (not incoming)
• Storage: only used (not allocated)
 Elasticity
• 1 core / 2 GB mem / 1 TB   32 cores / 448 GB mem / 64 TB

7. Windows Azure virtual machine tiers
Basic Standard
A0 – A4
1 – 8 CPU cores
768 MB – 14 GB RAM
Max 16 datadisks w/300 IOPS per disk
For dev/test workloads or applications
that don’t require load-balancing,
auto-scaling, or memory-intensive
VM’s.
G series (G1 – G5)
2 – 32 CPU cores
28 GB – 448 GB RAM
Up to 64 datadisks with 500 IOPS/disk
GS Series (GS1 – GS5)
2 – 32 CPU cores
28 GB – 448 GB RAM
Up to 64 datadisks with 5000 – 80000 IOPS/disk
F Series
Web/Application servers
H Series
Modeling/Simulation servers
N Series
Graphics workloadshttps://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-size-specs/
A0 – A11
1 – 16 CPU cores
768 MB – 112 GB RAM
Max 16 datadisks with 500 IOPS/disk
D1 – D14 & D1_v2 – D15_v2
1 – 20 CPU cores
768 MB – 140 GB RAM
Max 16 datadisks with 500 IOPS/disk
DS1 – DS14
Up to 50,000 IOPS
32 – 512 MB second

8. Compare compute performance

9. 



 DS-Series: Same CPU and memory as D-Series. Support Premium Storage (good for Data, Log, and TempDB!!)

 GS-Series: Fastest CPU, most memory. Support Premium Storage



Azure calculator: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/

10. • Premium Storage
 High throughput
 Low latency
 SSD disks in the backend
 Uses local SSD disk as read cache
 Avg 1ms read latency
 Cache hits not part of max IOPs/bandwidth
VM Size
CPU
cores
Memory Cache size Max. IOPS
Max. Storage
Bandwidth
DS1 1 3.5 GB 43 GB 3,200 32 MB/s
DS2 2 7 GB 86 GB 6,400 64 MB/s
DS3 4 14 GB 172 GB 12,800 128 MB/s
DS4 8 28 GB 344 GB 25,600 256 MB/s
DS11 2 14 GB 72 GB 6,400 64 MB/s
DS12 4 28 GB 144 GB 12,800 128 MB/s
DS13 8 56 GB 288 GB 25,600 256 MB/s
DS14 16 112 GB 576 GB 50,000 512 MB/s
Disk
Type
Disk Size Storage
IOPS
Storage
Bandwidth
(MB/s)
P10 128 GB 500 100
P20 512 GB 2300 150
P30 1024 GB 5000 200
GS5 32 448 GB 4,608 GB 100,000 2048 MB/s

11. VM Gallery Images via Azure Marketplace
Certified pre-configured software images (1087)

12. Azure Quickstart Templates
Free community contributed templates (417)

13. Storage configuration
Automatically creates
one Windows storage
space (virtual drive)
across all disks

14. Services by region

15. Hyper scale Infrastructure is the enabler
34 Regions Worldwide, 30 Generally Available…
 100+ datacenters
 Top 3 networks in the world
 2.5x AWS, 7x Google DC Regions
 G Series – Largest VM in World, 32 cores, 448GB Ram, SSD…
Operational
Announced/Not Operational
Central US
Iowa
West US
California
East US
Virginia
US Gov
Virginia
North Central US
Illinois
US Gov
Iowa
South Central US
Texas
Brazil South
Sao Paulo State
West Europe
Netherlands
China North *
Beijing
China South *
Shanghai
Japan East
Tokyo, Saitama
Japan West
Osaka
India South
Chennai
East Asia
Hong Kong
SE Asia
Singapore
Australia South East
Victoria
Australia East
New South Wales
India Central
Pune
Canada East
Quebec City
Canada Central
Toronto
India West
Mumbai
Germany North East **
Magdeburg
Germany Central **
Frankfurt
North Europe
Ireland
East US 2
Virginia
United Kingdom
Regions (south
& west)
US DoD East
TBD
US DoD West
TBD
* Operated by 21Vianet ** Data Stewardship by Deutsche Telekom
Korea
(Seoul &
South)
West US 2
West
Central US

16. Migrating Data
Migrate from on-prem SQL server to Azure VM IaaS:
• Use the Deploy a SQL Server Database to a Microsoft Azure VM wizard. Recommended method for migrating an on-premises user database
when the compressed database backup file is less than 1 TB. Use on SQL Server 2005 or greater to SQL Server 2014 or greater
• Perform on-premises backup using compression and manually copy the backup file into the Azure virtual machine and then do a restore (only if
you cannot use the above wizard or the database backup size is larger than 1 TB). Use on SQL Server 2005 or greater to SQL Server 2005 or
greater
• Perform a backup to URL and restore into the Azure virtual machine from the URL. Use on SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU2 or greater to SQL Server
2012 SP1 CU2 or greater
• Detach and then copy the data and log files to Azure blob storage and then attach to SQL Server in Azure VM from URL. Use on SQL Server
2005 or greater to SQL Server 2014 or greater
• Convert on-premises physical machine to Hyper-V VHD, upload to Azure Blob storage, and then deploy as new VM using uploaded VHD. Use
when bringing your own SQL Server license, when migrating a database that you will run on an older version of SQL Server, or when migrating
system and user databases together as part of the migration of database dependent on other user databases and/or system databases. Use on
SQL Server 2005 or greater to SQL Server 2005 or greater
• Ship hard drive using Windows Import/Export Service. Use when manual copy method is too slow, such as with very large databases. Use on SQL
Server 2005 or greater to SQL Server 2005 or greater
• If you have an AlwaysOn deployment on-premises and want to minimize downtime, use the Add Azure Replica Wizard to create a replica in Azure
and then failover, pointing users to the Azure database instance. Use on SQL Server 2012 or greater to SQL Server 2012 or greater
• If you do not have an AlwaysOn deployment on-premises and want to minimize downtime, use SQL Server transactional replication to configure
the Azure SQL Server instance as a subscriber and then disable replication, pointing users to the Azure database instance. Use on SQL Server
2005 or greater to SQL Server 2005 or greater
• Others: data-tier application, transact-SQL scripts, sql server import and export wizard, SSIS, copy database wizard

17. Scale VMs

18. Scale VMs
PowerShell script

19. Automated Patching
• Predictable solution for patching (Windows & SQL)
• Simple: just specify a time window
• Uses SQL Agent Extension and MS Update
• Portal and Powershell
• It relies on the Windows Update and the Microsoft
Update infrastructure and installs any update that
matches the ‘Important’ category for the machine

20. Automated Backup
• For all DBs in the SQL instance
• Simple: just specify a retention period
• Supports Compression and Encryption
• Portal and Powershell
• Full database and transaction log backups
• Configure at database level or SQL Server instance level
In SQL Server 2016:
• Full, bulk-logged and simple recovery models are all
supported
• System databases can be configured for backups
• Backup striping can be used to support backup sizes of up to
12 TB
• Customer backup schedules can be specified to ensure your
backups are created when it is best for your workload

21. Licensing/bring your own license

22. Connecting to Azure VMs
Virtual Network
VPN
GW
Frontend
10.1/16
Mid-tier
10.2/16
Backend
10.3/16
Internet
On Premises
10.0/16
VPN &
ExpressRoute
Azure
Direct Internet
Connectivity
Virtual Machine networking
• Create subnets with private or public IP addresses
• Bring your own DNS or use Azure-provided DNS
• Secure with Network Security Groups ACLs
• Control traffic with user-defined routes

23. Connectivity options and hybrid offerings
Secure site-to-site
VPN connectivity
• SMB, Enterprises
• Connect to Azure compute
Secure point-to-site
connectivity
• Developers
• POC Efforts
• Small scale deployments
• Connect from anywhere
ExpressRoute private
connectivity
• SMB, Enterprises
• Mission critical workloads
• Backup/DR, media, HPC
• Connect to Microsoft services
Internet connectivity
• Consumers
• Access over public IP
• DNS resolution
• Connect from anywhere

24. Virtual Machine storage architecture
C:
OS disk (127 GB)
Usually 115 GB free
E:, F:, etc.
Data disks (1 TB)
Attach SSD/HDD up to 1TB. These
are .vhd files
D:
Temporary disk
(Contents can be lost)
SSD/HDD and size depends on VM
chosenDisk Cache

25. Azure Default Blob Storage
 Azure Storage Page Blobs, 3 copies
 Storage high durability built-in (like have RAID)
 VHD disks, up to 1 TB per disk (64 TB total)

26. Geo-storage replication
 3 copies locally, another 3 copies in different region
 Disable for SQL Server VM disk (consistent write
order across multiple disks is not guaranteed).
Instead use DR techniques in this deck
Defend against regional disasters
Geo replication

27. Blog Storage Replication Options

28. HA/DR pieces

29. HA/DR deployment architectures
Azure Only
Availability replicas
running across
multiple datacenters
in Azure VMs for
disaster recovery.
Cross-region solution
protects against
complete site outage.
Hybrid
Some availability
replicas running in
Azure VMs and other
replicas running on-
premises for cross-
site disaster recovery.
HA only, not DR
FCI on a two-node
WSFC running in
Azure VMs with
storage supported by
a third-party
clustering solution.
FCI on a two-node
WSFC running in
Azure VMs with
remote iSCSI Target
shared block storage
via ExpressRoute.
Azure Only
Principal and mirror
and servers running
in different
datacenters for
disaster recovery.
Principal, Mirror, and
Witness run within
same Azure data
center, deployed
using a DC or server
certificates for HA.
Hybrid
One partner running
in an Azure VM and
the other running on-
premises for cross-
site disaster recovery
using server
certificates.
For DR only /
Hybrid only
One server running in
an Azure VM and the
other running on-
premises for cross-
site disaster recovery.
Log shipping
depends on Windows
file sharing, so a VPN
connection between
the Azure virtual
network and the on-
premises network is
required.
Requires AD
deployment on DR
site.
On-prem or Azure
production databases
backed up directly to
Azure blob storage
for disaster recovery.
SQL 2016: Backup to
Azure with file
snapshots
Simpler BCDR story
Site Recovery makes
it easy to handle
replication, failover
and recovery for your
on-premises
workloads and
applications (not
data!).
Flexible replication
You can replicate on-
premises servers,
Hyper-V virtual
machines, and
VMware virtual
machines.
Eliminate the need
for secondary
Native support for
SQL Server data files
stored as Azure blobs

30. RPO/RTO
RTO – Recover Time Objective. How much time after a failure until we have to be up
and running again?
RPO – Recover Point Objective. How much data can we lose?
• HA – High Availability
• RTO: seconds to minutes
• RPO: Zero to seconds
• Automatic failover
• Well tested (maybe with each patch or release)
• DR – Disaster Recovery
• RTO: minutes to hours
• RPO: seconds to minutes
• Manual failover into prepared environment
• Tested from time to time
How long does it take to fail over:
• Backup-Restore: Hours
• Log Shipping: Minutes
• AlwaysOn FCI: Seconds to minutes
• AlwaysOn AG/Mirroring: Seconds

31. AlwaysOn Availability Groups
Azure Only
Availability replicas
running across
multiple datacenters
in Azure VMs for
disaster recovery.
Cross-region solution
protects against
complete site outage.
Hybrid
Some availability
replicas running in
Azure VMs and other
replicas running on-
premises for cross-
site disaster recovery.
Availability replicas running across multiple datacenters in Azure
VMs for disaster recovery. This cross-region solution protects
against complete site outage.
Within a region, all replicas should be within the same cloud
service and the same VNet. Because each region will have a
separate VNet, these solutions require VNet to VNet connectivity.
For more information, see Configure a Site-to-Site VPN in the
Azure classic portal.
All availability replicas running in Azure VMs for high
availability within the same region. You need to configure a
domain controller VM, because Windows Server Failover
Clustering (WSFC) requires an Active Directory domain.
For more information, see Configure AlwaysOn Availability
Groups in Azure (GUI).

32. AlwaysOn between Azure Regions
• Configure AlwaysOn between VMs in different geographic regions (asynchronous)
• Over secure tunnel
• Manual Failover (~15 seconds) in case of a regional failure
• Test it at any time
• Use closest secondary for read workloads
• Region 1: AG used instead
of FCI (synchronous)

33. AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances (FCI)
An FCI on a two-node WSFC running in Azure VMs with remote
iSCSI Target shared block storage via ExpressRoute. For example,
NetApp Private Storage (NPS) exposes an iSCSI target via
ExpressRoute with Equinix to Azure VMs.
For third-party shared storage and data replication solutions, you
should contact the vendor for any issues related to accessing data
on failover.
Note that using FCI on top of Azure File storage is not supported
yet, because this solution does not utilize Premium Storage. We
are working to support this soon.
HA only, not DR
FCI on a two-node
WSFC running in
Azure VMs with
storage supported by
a third-party
clustering solution.
FCI on a two-node
WSFC running in
Azure VMs with
remote iSCSI Target
shared block storage
via ExpressRoute.
You can use FCI to
host an availability
replica for an
availability group
FCI on a two-node WSFC running in Azure
VMs with storage supported by a third-party
clustering solution.

34. AlwaysOn FCI vs AlwaysOn AG

35. Database Mirroring
Azure Only
Principal and mirror
and servers running
in different
datacenters for
disaster recovery.
Principal, Mirror, and
Witness run within
same Azure data
center, deployed
using a DC or server
certificates for HA.
Hybrid
One partner running
in an Azure VM and
the other running
on-premises for
cross-site disaster
recovery using server
certificates.
Principal and mirror and servers running in
different datacenters for disaster recovery. You
must deploy using server certificates because an
Active Directory domain cannot span multiple
datacenters.
Principal, mirror, and witness servers all running in the
same Azure datacenter for high availability. You can
deploy using a domain controller.
You can also deploy the same database mirroring configuration
without a domain controller by using server certificates instead.

36. Block blobs
Reduced storage costs
Significantly improved
restore performance
More granular control
over Azure Storage
Azure Storage snapshot
backup
Fastest method for creating
backups and running restores
Support of SQL Server database
files on Azure Blob Storage
Backup to Azure
Managed backup
On-prem to Azure
Granular control of the backup
schedule
Local staging for faster recovery and
greater network resiliency
System database support
Simple recovery mode support
On-prem or Azure
production databases
backed up directly to
Azure blob storage
for disaster recovery.
SQL 2016: Backup to
Azure with file
snapshots
Production databases backed up directly to blob storage
in a different datacenter for disaster recovery
On-premises production databases backed up directly
to Azure blob storage for disaster recovery.

37. SQL Server in Azure VM Best Practices
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-sql-server-performance-best-practices/

38. © 2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.