Backup Techniques for SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines

Posted on October 17, 2019 by blobeater

In the previous blog post I did a quick overview building a SQL VM (imaged) in Azure. It is now time to clarify some backup techniques because it can get confusing.

At a high level there are 3 techniques.

Automated backup.
Azure backup for SQL VM (that’s what MS call it).
Manual backup, for example backup to URL.

I prefer not setting up manual backups to storage accounts, I have done it, I just find it painful to setup/support/fix. So my choice would be automated backup vs “Azure backup” for SQL VM. What’s the difference?

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SQL Server Virtual Machines in Azure

Posted on October 9, 2019 by blobeater

Let’s create a virtual machine in Azure that has an imaged copy of SQL Server on it. I want to do this because down the line I want to show how you can setup automated backups to a storage account based on an IaaS extension, when I do that I will most likely talk about the different backup options because there are many.

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SQL Server Management Studio

Posted on August 1, 2019 by blobeater

Hopefully you know that SSMS is a separate install from the main SQL Server install. You can find the binaries from Microsoft (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssms/download-sql-server-management-studio-ssms) Using SSMS version 18.2, whilst playing around with the options I noticed a dark theme was available, easy to say I got a little excited, then I didn’t.

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SQL server and Java?

Posted on July 29, 2019 by blobeater

I was generally reading about SQL Server and how things have changed since the days of just having it within a Windows Eco-system only. It then led me to a cool website, SQL Server development – build an app using SQL server where you can get to see the high-level requirements of starting to build a solution based on a wide variation of languages and operating systems. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/developer-get-started/

There are many combinations possible with SQL Server being the back-end database of choice.

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SQL Server 2019 Suspend/Resume TDE

Posted on April 2, 2019 by blobeater

Yes, a really nice new shiny feature where we have the ability to suspend and resume the encryption scan for TDE – Transparent Data Encryption which is available in SQL Server 2019. (Tested against the latest version CTP 2.4)

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