Book Image

Professional Azure SQL Managed Database Administration - Third Edition

By : Ahmad Osama, Shashikant Shakya
Book Image

Professional Azure SQL Managed Database Administration - Third Edition

By: Ahmad Osama, Shashikant Shakya

Overview of this book

Despite being the cloud version of SQL Server, Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance stands out in various aspects when it comes to management, maintenance, and administration. Updated with the latest Azure features, Professional Azure SQL Managed Database Administration continues to be a comprehensive guide for becoming proficient in data management. The book begins by introducing you to the Azure SQL managed databases (Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance), explaining their architecture, and how they differ from an on-premises SQL server. You will then learn how to perform common tasks, such as migrating, backing up, and restoring a SQL Server database to an Azure database. As you progress, you will study how you can save costs and manage and scale multiple SQL databases using elastic pools. You will also implement a disaster recovery solution using standard and active geo-replication. Finally, you will explore the monitoring and tuning of databases, the key features of databases, and the phenomenon of app modernization. By the end of this book, you will have mastered the key aspects of an Azure SQL database and Azure SQL managed instance, including migration, backup restorations, performance optimization, high availability, and disaster recovery.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
13
Index

Differences between SQL Database, SQL Managed Instance, and SQL Server

SQL Database and SQL Managed Instance are PaaS offerings from the Azure SQL family and therefore some of their features differ from the on-premises SQL Server. Some of the important features that differ are as follows:

Backup and restore

SQL Database

Conventional database backup and restore statements aren't supported on SQL Database. Backups are automatically scheduled and start within a few minutes of the database being provisioned. Backups are consistent, transaction-wise, which means that you can do a point-in-time restore.

There is no additional cost for backup storage until the amount stored goes beyond 100% of the database's size.

You can reduce the backup retention period to manage backup storage costs. You can also use the long-term retention period feature to store backups in a separate Azure blob container for a much lower cost for up to 10 years.

Apart from automatic backups...