Comparison between a

SQL Server and SQL Server on Azure

By Group:-

1-Kaled Sadek

2-Ashraf Saied

3-Rashed Refaat

4-Abd El Slam Helmy

5- Ibrhim Mohamed

Supervised by:

Prof. Dr. Ibrahim El Henawy

Microsoft Azure provides a couple options for using a SQL Database.

Azure has two options for hosting SQL Server workloads in the cloud:

 Azure SQL Database: A SQL database native to the cloud, also known as a platform as a
service (PaaS) database or a database as a service (DBaaS) that is optimized for software-
as-a-service (SaaS) app development. It offers compatibility with the majority of SQL
Server features.
 SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines: SQL Server installed and hosted in the cloud on
Windows Server Virtual Machines (VMs) running on Azure, also known as an
infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

While when using SQL Server you need to procure licensing and servers; which also means
Windows Server licensing as well. This can be quite costly both to purchase and maintain from
licensing to infrastructure costs.

Here’s a simple comparison of the primary differences between the three different options of
hosting SQL databases with both SQL Server and Azure SQL:

SQL Server
 Hosting: on-premises

 Licensing: requires SQL Server license

 Max DB Size: based on SQL Server license
 Azure Cost: None, it’s on-premises
 Other Cost: infrastructure costs associated with an on-premise database
server
Azure SQL
 Hosting: Azure PaaS

 Licensing: no SQL Server license required

 Max DB Size: 500GB

 Azure Cost: based on Database Throughput Units* (DTU’s) consumed
 Other Cost: none
Azure VM + SQL Server
 Hosting: Azure IaaS

 Licensing: requires SQL Server license

 Max DB Size: 16TB due to Azure VM disk restrictions

  Azure Cost: Azure VM usage
 Other Cost: SQL Server licensing

* Database Throughput Unit (DTU) is a representation of a databases power

based on a blend of the CPU, memory, and read/write rates of the database.
This is a metric Microsoft Azure uses to help you assess the relative power of
performance across the Basic, Standard and Premium service tiers.
https://buildazure.com/2015/07/07/azure-sql-or-sql-server-database/#content-
wrapper

Microsoft's data platform

One of the first things to understand in any discussion of Azure versus on-premises SQL Server
databases is that you can use it all. Microsoft’s data platform leverages SQL Server technology
and makes it available across physical on-premises machines, private cloud environments, third-
party hosted private cloud environments, and public cloud. This enables you to meet unique and
diverse business needs through a combination of on-premises and cloud-hosted deployments,
while using the same set of server products, development tools, and expertise across these
environments.
As seen in the diagram, each offering can be characterized by the level of administration you
have over the infrastructure (on the X axis), and by the degree of cost efficiency achieved by
database level consolidation and automation (on the Y axis).

When designing an application, four basic options are available for hosting the SQL Server part
of the application:

 SQL Server on non-virtualized physical machines

 SQL Server in on-premises virtualized machines (private cloud)
 SQL Server in Azure Virtual Machine (public cloud)
 Azure SQL Database (public cloud)

In the following sections, we will learn about SQL Server in the public cloud: Azure SQL
Database and SQL Server on Azure VMs. In addition, we will explore common business
motivators for determining which option works best for your application.
A closer look at Azure SQL Database and SQL Server on
Azure VMs
Azure SQL Database is a relational database-as-a-service (DBaaS) hosted in the Azure cloud
that falls into the industry categories of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service
(PaaS). SQL Database is built on standardized hardware and software that is owned, hosted, and
maintained by Microsoft. With SQL Database, you can develop directly on the service using
built-in features and functionality. When using SQL Database, you pay-as-you-go with options
to scale up or out for greater power with no interruption.

SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) falls into the industry category Infrastructure-
as-a-Service (IaaS) and allows you to run SQL Server inside a virtual machine in the cloud.
Similar to SQL Database, it is built on standardized hardware that is owned, hosted, and
maintained by Microsoft. When using SQL Server on a VM, you can either bring your own SQL
Server license or use a pre-licensed SQL Server image from the Azure portal.

In general, these two SQL options are optimized for different purposes:

 SQL Database is optimized to reduce overall costs to the minimum for provisioning and
managing many databases. It reduces ongoing administration costs because you do not
have to manage any virtual machines, operating system or database software. This
includes upgrades, high availability, and backups. In general, Azure SQL Database can
dramatically increase the number of databases managed by a single IT or development
resource.

 SQL Server running on Azure VMs is optimized for extending existing on-premises
SQL Server applications to the cloud in a hybrid scenario or deploying an existing
application to Azure in a migration or dev/test scenario. An example of the hybrid
scenario is keeping secondary database replicas in Azure via use of Azure Virtual
Networks. With SQL Server on Azure VMs, you have the full administrative rights over
a dedicated SQL Server instance and a cloud-based VM. It is a perfect choice when an
organization already has IT resources available to maintain the virtual machines. With
SQL Server on VMs, you can build a highly customized system to address your
application’s specific performance and availability requirements.
 The following table summarizes the main characteristics of SQL Database and SQL

SQL Database SQL Server in Azure VM

o New cloud-designed
applications that have
time constraints in
development and
marketing.
o Existing applications that require fast migration to the cloud with minimal
o Applications that need
changes.
built-in high availability,
o SQL Server applications that require access to on-premises resources (such as
disaster recovery, and
Active Directory) from Azure via a secure tunnel.
upgrade mechanisms.
o If you need a customized IT environment with full administrative rights.
o Teams that do not want to
o Rapid development and test scenarios when you do not want to buy on-
Best for manage the underlying
premises non-production SQL Server hardware.
operating system and
o Disaster recovery for on-premises SQL Server applications using [backup to
configuration settings.
Azure Storage](http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/jj919148.aspx) or
o Applications using scale-
AlwaysOn replicas with Azure VMs.
out patterns.
o Large databases that are bigger than 1 TB in size.
o Databases of up to 1 TB
in size.
o Building Software-as-a-
Service (SaaS)
applications.

o You do not want to

employ IT resources for
support and maintenance
of the underlying o You have IT resources for support and maintenance.
Resources infrastructure.
o You want to focus on the
application layer.

o Eliminates hardware
Total cost of costs. Reduces o Eliminates hardware costs.
ownership administrative costs.

o In addition to built-in
fault tolerance
infrastructure capabilities,
Azure SQL Database
o SQL Server on Azure VMs lets you to set up a high availability and
provides features, such as
disaster recovery solution for your database’s specific needs. Therefore,
Point in Time Restore,
you can have a system that is highly optimized for your application. You
Geo-Restore, and Geo-
Business can test and run failovers by yourself when needed. For more information,
Replication to increase
continuity see [High Availability and Disaster Recovery for SQL Server on Azure
business continuity. For
Virtual Machines](../virtual-machines/virtual-machines-windows-sql-high-
more information, see
availability-dr.md).
[SQL Database business
continuity overview](sql-
database-business-
continuity.md).

o Your on-premises
application can access
data in Azure SQL
Hybrid cloud
Database.
o With SQL Server on Azure VMs, you can have applications that run partly
in the cloud and partly on-premises. For example, you can extend your on-
premises network and Active Directory Domain to the cloud via [Azure
Virtual Network](../virtual-network/virtual-networks-overview.md). In
addition, you can store on-premises data files in Azure Storage using [SQL
Server Data Files in
 Azure](http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/dn385720.aspx). For more
information, see [Introduction to SQL Server 2014 Hybrid
Cloud](http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/dn606154.aspx).
o Supports disaster recovery for on-premises SQL Server applications using
[SQL Server Backup and Restore with Azure Blob
Storage](http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/jj919148.aspx) or [AlwaysOn
replicas in Azure VMs](../virtual-machines/virtual-machines-windows-sql-
high-availability-dr.md).

Business motivations for choosing Azure SQL Database or

SQL Server on Azure VMs
Cost

Whether you’re a startup that is strapped for cash, or a team in an established company that
operates under tight budget constraints, limited funding is often the primary driver when
deciding how to host your databases. In this section, we’ll first learn about the billing and
licensing basics in Azure with regards to these two relational database options: SQL Database
and SQL Server on Azure VMs. Then, we’ll see how we should calculate the total application
cost.

Billing and licensing basics

SQL Database is sold to customers as a service, not with a license, whereas SQL Server on
Azure VMs requires traditional SQL Server licensing.

Currently, SQL Database is available in several service tiers, all of which are billed hourly at a
fixed rate based on the service tier and performance level you choose. In addition, you are billed
for outgoing Internet traffic. The Basic, Standard, and Premium service tiers are designed to
deliver predictable performance with multiple performance levels to match your application’s
peak requirements. You can change between service tiers and performance levels to match your
application’s varied throughput needs. If your database has high transactional volume and needs
to support many concurrent users, we recommend the Premium service tier. For the latest
information on the current supported service tiers .

With SQL Database, the database software is automatically configured, patched, and upgraded
by Microsoft, which reduces your administration costs. In addition, its built-in backup
capabilities help you achieve significant cost savings, especially when you have a large number
of databases.

With SQL Server on Azure VMs, you utilize traditional SQL Server licensing. You can either
use the platform-provided SQL Server image (which includes a license) or bring your SQL
Server license. When using the Azure provided images, the operational cost depends on the VM
size as well as the edition of SQL Server you choose. Regardless of VM size or SQL Server
edition, you pay per-minute licensing cost of SQL Server and Windows Server, along with the
Azure Storage cost for the VM disks. The per-minute billing option allows you to use SQL
Server for as long as you need without buying addition SQL Server licenses. If you bring your
own SQL Server license to Azure, you are charged for Windows Server and storage costs only.
For more information on bring-your-own licensing .

Calculating the total application cost

When you start using a cloud platform, the cost of running your application primarily includes
the development and administration costs along with the service costs that the public cloud
platform requires.

Here is the detailed cost calculation for your application running in SQL Database and SQL
Server on Azure VMs:

When using Azure SQL Database:

Total cost of application = Highly minimized administration costs + software development costs
+ SQL Database service costs

When using SQL Server on Azure VMs:

Total cost of application = Minimized software development/modification costs + administration

costs + SQL Server and Windows Server licensing costs + Azure Storage costs

Administration

For many businesses, the decision to transition to a cloud service is as much about offloading
complexity of administration as it is cost. With SQL Database, Microsoft administers the
underlying hardware, automatically replicates all data to provide high availability, configures
and upgrades the database software, manages load balancing, and does transparent failover if
there is a server failure. You can continue to administer your database, but you no longer need to
manage the database engine, server operating sytem or hardware. Examples of items you can
continue to administer include databases and logins, index and query tuning, and auditing and
security.

On the other hand, you might have in-house expertise and a desire to keep control over database
location down to the location of disk. With SQL Server running on Azure VMs, you have full
control over the operating system and SQL Server instance configuration. With a VM, it’s up to
you to decide when to update/upgrade the operating system and database software and when to
install any additional software such as anti-virus and backup tools. In addition, you can control
the size of the VM, the number of disks, and their storage configurations. For example, Azure
allows you to change the size of a VM as needed. For information .

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

For many IT departments, meeting up-time obligations of a Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a
top priority. In this section, we look at what SLA applies to each database hosting option.
For SQL Database Basic, Standard, and Premium service tiers Microsoft provides an
availability SLA of 99.99%. For the latest information. For the latest information on SQL
Database service tiers and the supported business continuity plans .

For SQL Server running on Azure VMs, Microsoft provides an availability SLA of 99.95%
that covers just the Virtual Machine. This SLA does not cover the processes (such as SQL
Server) running on the VM and requires that you host at least two VM instances in an
availability set. For the latest information . For database high availability (HA) within VMs, you
should configure one of the supported high availability options in SQL Server .

Time to market

SQL Database is the right solution for cloud-designed applications when developer productivity
and fast time-to-market are critical. With programmatic DBA-like functionality, it is perfect for
cloud architects and developers as it lowers the need for managing the underlying operating
system and database. For example, you can use the REST API and PowerShell Cmdlets to
automate and manage administrative operations for thousands of databases. Features such as
Elastic Database Pools allow you to focus on the application layer and deliver your solution to
the market faster.

SQL Server running on Azure VMs is perfect if your existing or new applications require
access and control to all features of a SQL Server instance. It is also a good fit when you want to
migrate existing on-premises applications and databases to Azure as-is. Since you do not need to
change the presentation, application, and data layers, you save time and budget on rearchitecting
your existing solution. Instead, you can focus on migrating all your solutions to Azure and in
doing some performance optimizations that may be required by the Azure platform. For more
information .

Summary
This article explored SQL Database and SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) and
discussed common business motivators that might affect your decision. The following is a
summary of suggestions for you to consider:

Choose Azure SQL Database if:

 You are building new cloud-based applications or you want to migrate your existing SQL
Server solution to take advantage of the cost savings and performance optimization that
cloud services provide. This approach provides the benefits of a fully managed cloud
service, helps lower initial time-to-market, and can provide long term cost optimization.
 You want to have Microsoft perform common management operations on your databases
and require stronger availability SLAs for databases.

Choose SQL Server on Azure VMs if:

 You have existing on-premises applications and want to stop maintaining your own
hardware, or you are considering hybrid solutions. This approach lets you access high
 database capacity sooner while facilitating connection to your on-premises applications
via a secure tunnel.
 You have existing IT resources, need full administrative rights over SQL Server, and
require full compatibility with on-premises SQL Server. This approach lets you minimize
costs for development or modifications of existing applications with the flexibility to run
most applications. In addition, it provides full control of the VM, operating system, and
database configuration.