Microsoft Azure SQL Database (formerly SQL Azure, SQL Server Data Services, SQL Services, and Windows Azure SQL Database) is a managed cloud database (

PaaS Platform as a service (PaaS) or application platform as a service (aPaaS) or platform-based service is a category of cloud computing services that allows customers to provision, instantiate, run, and manage a modular bundle comprising a computing ...

) provided as part of Microsoft Azure. A

cloud database A cloud database is a database that typically runs on a cloud computing platform and access to the database is provided as-a-service. There are two common deployment models: users can run databases on the cloud independently, using a virtual machin ...

is a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

that runs on a

cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over m ...

platform, and access to it is provided as a service. Managed database services take care of scalability, backup, and high availability of the database. Azure SQL Database is a managed database service which differs from

AWS RDS Amazon Relational Database Service (or Amazon RDS) is a distributed relational database service by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It is a web service running "in the cloud" designed to simplify the setup, operation, and scaling of a relational dat ...

, which is a container service.

Overview

Microsoft Azure SQL Database includes built-in intelligence that learns app patterns and adapts to maximize performance, reliability, and

data protection Information privacy is the relationship between the collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, contextual information norms, and the legal and political issues surrounding them. It is also known as da ...

. It was originally announced in 2009 and released in 2010. Key capabilities include: * Continuous learning of your unique app patterns, adaptive performance tuning, and automatic improvements to reliability and data protection. * Scaling as needed, with virtually no app downtime. * Management and monitoring of multitenant apps with isolation benefits of one-customer-per-database. * Leverage open source tools like cheetah, sql-cli,

VS Code Visual Studio Code, also commonly referred to as VS Code, is a source-code editor made by Microsoft with the Electron Framework, for Windows, Linux and macOS. Features include support for debugging, syntax highlighting, intelligent code complet ...

and Microsoft tools like

Visual Studio Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platforms such ...

and

SQL Server Management Studio Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is a software application developed by Microsoft that is used for configuring, managing, and administering all components within Microsoft SQL Server. First launched with Microsoft SQL Server 200 ...

Azure Management Portal Microsoft Azure, often referred to as Azure ( , ), is a cloud computing platform operated by Microsoft for application management via around the world-distributed data centers. Microsoft Azure has multiple capabilities such as software as a ...

PowerShell PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management program from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and the associated scripting language. Initially a Windows component only, known as Windows PowerShell, it was made open-sou ...

, and

REST Rest or REST may refer to: Relief from activity * Sleep ** Bed rest * Kneeling * Lying (position) * Sitting * Squatting position Structural support * Structural support ** Rest (cue sports) ** Armrest ** Headrest ** Footrest Arts and ente ...

APIs. * Data protection with encryption, authentication, limiting user access to the subset of the data, continuous monitoring and auditing to help detect potential threats and provide a record of critical events in case of a breach.

Popular use cases

* Relational data storage for cloud based applications and web sites * Business and consumer web and mobile apps * Manage databases for multi-tenant apps (

software-as-a-service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is cons ...

) * Quickly create dev and test databases to speed up development cycles * Scale production business services quickly and at a known cost * Containerize data in the cloud for isolation and security * Outsource database management in order to focus on value-added services

Design

Azure SQL Database shares the SQL Server 2016 codebase. It is compatible with SQL Server 2014 and 2016 and most of the features available in SQL Server 2016 are available in Azure SQL Database. A list of incompatibilities is published by Microsoft.

Timeline

* 2009 – Service announced * 2010 – Service went live * 2014 – New version announced * 2015 – Elastic Pools announced

Pricing

Azure SQL Database is offered either as a Standalone database or Elastic database pool, and is priced in three tiers: Basic, Standard and Premium. Each tier offers different performance levels to accommodate a variety of workloads. The resources available for Standalone databases are expressed in terms of Database Transaction Units (DTUs) and for elastic pools in terms of elastic DTUs or eDTUs. A DTU is defined as a blended measure of CPU, memory, and data I/O and transaction log I/O in a ratio determined by an OLTP benchmark workload designed to be typical of real-world OLTP workloads. Databases are available as Standalone databases or in database pools which allow multiple databases to share storage and compute resources. It is also available as a limited service offering with a trial Web site or Mobile service and eligible for use with an Azure trial subscription.

References

External links

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Microsoft Azure Security TechnologiesWhat is Azure SQL Database?
{{Microsoft development tools Azure SQL Database