Okay it is not really called Giant Azure SQL Database but its close. There is a new public preview vCore service tier called Hyperscale. The architecture behind this is very different to that of a Standard tier SQL database (as an example).  What drives this concept? Flexible storage architecture where you can scale out the storage as your database grows (up to the 100TB mark).

Please read the following link for in depth details of how this works: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-hyperscale

Obviously the main reason to go down this route is to go beyond the limit of 4TB HOWEVER there are 2 main caveats to be aware of which I have found so far.

1. This does NOT  support TDE (Transparent Data Encryption) enabled databases. So if you have a requirement to have TDE enabled then this is not the option for you.

Here is a screen shot of the Azure Portal with the red exclamation warning.

2. You cannot use this feature with a database within an elastic pool.

As you can see with the image below I issued a scale request to hyperscale from a database that was within a standard elastic pool.

Then I noticed the”Not Supported” message for the elastic pool from the main menu page.

I can 100% confirm that the database was moved out of the pool as the scale option completed.

So whilst looking into new features always check for caveats and carry out some research.

Thanks for reading.