Microsoft Azure SQL Database
Microsoft Azure SQL Database is a managed cloud database provided as part of Microsoft Azure.
A cloud database is a database that runs on a cloud computing platform, and access to it is provided as a service. Managed database services take care of scalability, backup, and high availability of the database. Azure SQL Database is a managed database service which is different from AWS RDS which is a container service.
Microsoft Azure SQL Database includes built-in intelligence that learns app patterns and adapts to maximize performance, reliability, and data protection.
It was originally announced in 2009 and released in 2010.
Key capabilities include:
- Continuous learning of your unique app patterns, adaptive performance tuning, and automatic improvements to reliability and data protection
- Scaling as needed, with virtually no app downtime
- Management and monitoring of multitenant apps with isolation benefits of one-customer-per-database
- Leverage open source tools like cheetah, sql-cli, VS Code and Microsoft tools like Visual Studio and SQL Server Management Studio, Azure Management Portal, PowerShell, and REST APIs
- Data protection with encryption, authentication, limiting user access to the appropriate subset of the data, continuous monitoring and auditing to help detect potential threats and provide a record of critical events in case of a breach
Popular use cases
- Relational data storage for cloud based applications and web sites
- Business and consumer web and mobile apps
- Manage databases for multi-tenant apps
- Quickly create dev and test databases to speed up development cycles
- Scale production business services quickly and at a known cost
- Containerize data in the cloud for isolation and security
- Outsource database management in order to focus on value-added services
Design
Timeline
- 2009 – Service announced
- 2010 – Service went live
- 2014 – New version announced
- 2015 – Elastic Pools announced
Pricing
The resources available for Standalone databases are expressed in terms of Database Transaction Units and for elastic pools in terms of elastic DTUs or eDTUs. A DTU is defined as a blended measure of CPU, memory, and data I/O and transaction log I/O in a ratio determined by an OLTP benchmark workload designed to be typical of real-world OLTP workloads.
Databases are available as Standalone databases or in database pools which allow multiple databases to share storage and compute resources.
| Service tier | Target workloads |
| Basic | Best suited for a small database, supporting typically one single active operation at a given time. Examples include databases used for development or testing, or small-scale infrequently used applications. |
| Standard | The go-to option for most cloud applications, supporting multiple concurrent queries. Examples include workgroup or web applications. |
| Premium | Designed for high transactional volume, supporting many concurrent users and requiring the highest level of business continuity capabilities. Examples are databases supporting mission critical applications. |
It is also available as a limited service offering with a trial Web site or Mobile service and eligible for use with an Azure trial subscription.