SQL Database Managed Instance on Azure

Azure supported Single and Elastic Pool deployment options for provisioning SQL Databases on Cloud. It now supports one more option which will allow organisations to life and shift their on-premises SQL 2005 and above database instances to a fully-managed PaaS, reducing or eliminating the need to re-architect apps and manage them in the cloud. The key difference is this new offering exposes entire SQL Server Instances to customers, instead of databases.
On the Managed Instance, all databases within the instance are located on the same SQL Server instance under the hood are just like on an on-premises SQL Server instance. This guarantees that all instance-scoped functionality will work the same way, such as global temp tables, cross-database queries, SQL Agent, etc. This database placement is kept through automatic failovers, and all server level objects, such as logins or SQL Agent logins, are properly replicated.
The new Azure Database Migration Service (ADMS) is a fully managed Azure Service that enables seamless migrations of SQL Server instances from on-premises to Azure Database Platforms with only a few minutes of downtime.

Technorati Tags: Azure,Azure SQL

Tags: Azure,Azure SQL

SQL Server 2016 – Stretch Database – Azure Pricing

I was so interested to see Stretch Database working between my home PC and Azure and got that set up and running and left to run for a few days. I got a notification from Azure saying that I have reached my credit limit for the month on Azure and plan got disabled.
Good that I set that up to alert me. I thought Stretch Database pricing would be typical to other Azure services but noticed that it is charged by hour also varying based on chosen compute usage.
Pricing looked interesting as minimum per month is around $2,800 per month. Need to think about how to use it efficiently even if it is for the Enterprise.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/sql-server-stretch-database/

Technorati Tags: SQL 2016,Stretch Database,Azure SQL Database,Pricing

SQL Server 2016 Features – Stretch Database

Stretch Database is a new feature in SQL Server 2016 that will allow to migrate old data from on-premises to Microsoft Azure and still provide the ability to access the data without making any query changes. Stretch Database provides the advantage of the lower costs of Azure Database and reduces the need to buy hardware and storage to support on-premise data archiving. Enterprise Storage is not always cheap.
Stretch Database is ideal for entire tables or part of a table. e.g. Orders that are older than a certain date or Customers who haven't made any orders for more than a year etc.
Stretch Database transfers data securely using Always Encrypted, so data is encrypted as it is being transferred from on-premises to Azure.
Note: Stretch Database only works between an on-premises SQL Server Database and Azure SQL Database, and cannot be used from one local SQL Server database to another.
Limitations of Stretch Database
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Technorati Tags: SQL 2016,Stretch Database,Azure SQL Database