Azure SQL – Saving Costs

When moving to a cloud model for your database stack no doubt you will be involved in a costing exercise. The good news is if you have Software Assurance with your existing licenses then expect some cost savings when moving to the cloud. You can save up to 70% cost when compared to a pay as you go model.

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Azure SQL Database – Contained user Model

I always follow a contained user model when setting up users within my Azure SQL Database. I do this so the user in question has access to only specific database(s) and does not have a login to the server. It becomes even more apparent the importance of this when you design a solution based on failover groups.

When a failover occurs to the secondary, I want a pleasant experience for the user. With the contained user model, the user goes with the database. I don’t want to do admin work on the new primary (post failover). Let’s see.

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Azure SQL Database and Long-Term Backups

There is a new (ish) interface to looking and configuring backups for your Azure SQL Database. This can be found within the settings section of the SQL Server.

As you can see, by default we have 7 days retention to allow for PITR – Point In Time Recovery, anything longer you will need to setup long term retention.

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Azure SQL vCore vs DTU

If you are building database solutions in Azure , using Azure SQL Database then you will know that you have a purchasing option decision to make. That being should you use a vCore model or DTU approach?

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Azure SQL Database – Greatest and Least TSQL

Being in the cloud does have many benefits, from lower administration to fast scaling but another “side effect” of operating in Azure SQL Database is the cloud first nature of changes. By this I basically mean new features always get pushed to Azure first before the classic on-premises version so some gems come to light.

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