Whirlwind Tour of Azure SQL Database

I have finally uploaded my Azure SQL Database presentation, apologies for the delay. I am already working on an improved version which I will be delivering next year. Here is the abstract:

Azure SQL Database is a general-purpose relational database service in Microsoft Azure. With Microsoft’s cloud-first strategy, the newest capabilities of SQL Server are released first to Azure SQL Database and then to SQL Server itself. During this entry level presentation you will get to see the differences in security, high availability, performance, and monitoring of this cloud-first solution. You will also learn about the different service tiers and performance levels that are specific to Azure SQL Database and learn about the different methods that you could use to migrate to Azure.

Link to the PowerPoint – https://blobeater.blog/presentations/

Azure SQL DB – Failed to update database because the database is read-only

Quite an interesting  situation I found myself in where I was perplexed for about 5 minutes. I was connected to an Azure SQL Database where I was configuring some users where then I executed a query and was presented with the following message:

Msg 3906, Level 16, State 2, Line 2
Failed to update database “testdb” because the database is read-only.

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SQL Server – Reading BACPAC Files

If you have been reading my blog for a while now you would know that a common technique to move to Azure SQL DB is to use BACPAC files. Just a reminder, see the below image.

mainpac

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Auto-Scaling Azure SQL DB

When I was presenting my Azure SQL Database session at DataRelay (used to be SQLRelay) I was asked (over coffee) about auto scaling capabilities. Quite simply there is nothing out of the box to achieve this. The idea of auto scaling would be good where you would need a burst to fulfill higher demand in terms of workload for a time duration, you know, something like “end of the day, Friday night sale” for your database.

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Hyperscale Azure SQL Databases

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).

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