Create SQL Azure DB Solutions (PaaS)
Here I am going to talk about the options of running SQL Server on Azure. You can have a SQL Server VM running on Azure on having an Azure SQL DB Service. Lets have a comparison between them. Azure SQL DB Service provides:
- DB as Service (DBaaS)
- Scalability and performance
- It is a Serverless DB hence Zero administration
But you have to consider the following too:
- Azure SQL DB Service always runs on top of latest SQL Server engine
- Not all Collations are supported
Creating Databases
To create a SQL VM, you have to the Compute section and while creating the VM, you can choose an image and there you can choose the SQL Server version you would like to choose.
To create an Azure SQL DB, click on the SQL Databases and there you have to choose a Server name, DB name and a (Compute + Storage) options. The available options as of now are General Purpose (up to 20K IOPS), Hyper Scale (200K IOPS) and Business Critical where latency is really low. IOPS is the number of requests that your application is sending to the storage disks per second.
You can see the pricing plans using the pricing calculator, it doesn’t make much difference between the two, hence the choice will be based on the features/issues mentioned above.
Conclusion
SQL Virtual Machine
- Pretty much the same as a physical machine in your network.
- You worry about the O/S in the VM, Microsoft takes care of the underlying infrastructure
- SSMS, database management, etc. is all the same as your local (on premises) servers.
- Backups are your responsibility and under your control (can be automated via the portal)
- You patch O/S and SQL
Azure SQL DB
- Always runs on latest SQL engine
- Connectivity is through connection strings for SSMS and connection strings are available through the Azure portal
- Patching is automated under the covers by Microsoft
- Backups are completely automated