SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines: A hands-on guide to provisioning Microsoft SQL Server on Azure VMs

✍ Scribed by Randolph West, Louis Davidson, Allan Hirt

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2020
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 201
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Learn how to combine SQL Server's analytics with Azure's flexibility and hybrid connectivity to achieve industry-leading performance and manageability for your cloud database.

Key Features

• Understand platform availability for SQL Server in Azure
• Explore the benefits and deployment choices offered by SQL IaaS
• Get to grips with deploying SQL Server on the Linux development ecosystem

Book Description

Deploying SQL Server on Azure virtual machines allows you to work on full versions of SQL Server in the cloud without having to maintain on-premises hardware. The book begins by introducing you to the SQL portfolio in Azure and takes you through SQL Server IaaS scenarios, before explaining the factors that you need to consider while choosing an OS for SQL Server in Azure VMs. As you progress through the book, you'll explore different VM options and deployment choices for IaaS and understand platform availability, migration tools, and best practices in Azure. In later chapters, you'll learn how to configure storage to achieve optimized performance. Finally, you'll get to grips with the concept of Azure Hybrid Benefit and find out how you can use it to maximize the value of your existing on-premises SQL Server.

By the end of this book, you'll be proficient in administering SQL Server on Microsoft Azure and leveraging the tools required for its deployment.

What you will learn

• Choose an operating system for SQL Server in Azure VMs
• Use the Azure Management Portal to facilitate the deployment process
• Verify connectivity and network latency in cloud
• Configure storage for optimal performance and connectivity
• Explore various disaster recovery options for SQL Server in Azure
• Optimize SQL Server on Linux
• Discover how to back up databases to a URL

Who this book is for

SQL Server on Azure VMs is for you if you are a developer, data enthusiast, or anyone who wants to migrate SQL Server databases to Azure virtual machines. Basic familiarity with SQL Server and managed identities for Azure resources will be a plus.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to SQL
2. Getting started with SQL Server in Azure VMs
3. Hero capabilities for SQL Server on Azure VMs
4. SQL Server on Linux in Azure VMs
5. Performance
6. Moving workloads to SQL Server in Azure VMs
7. Hybrid scenarios

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
FM
Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
Chapter 1: Introduction to SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines
Introduction
The Azure SQL portfolio
SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines
Azure SQL Managed Instance
Azure SQL Database
SQL Server in Azure comparisons
SQL Server 2019 highlights
Intelligence over all of your data
Enhancements in developer experience
Performance enhancements
Security improvements
High Availability/Disaster Recovery (HADR)
Platform of choice
SQL Server IaaS scenarios and use cases
Lift and Shift
Extending your on-premises environment to the cloud
Development and test environments
Choosing an OS for SQL Server in Azure VMs
Reasons to choose either Windows or Linux for SQL Server
Differences between SQL Server on Linux and Windows
Summary
Chapter links
Chapter 2: Getting started with SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines
The benefits of deploying SQL Server using IaaS
Deployment choices for IaaS
Deployment methods
Common Azure VM deployment considerations for SQL Server
Licensing SQL Server in Azure
Azure VM hardware options
VM types and sizes
Storage
Summary
Chapter links
Chapter 3: Hero capabilities of SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines
Understanding platform availability in Azure
Availability Zones
Availability sets
Disaster recovery options for SQL Server in Azure
Beyond backups
Always On availability groups
Differences with availability groups in Azure
Availability groups for read-scale workloads
SQL Server on Azure VM resource provider
Performance optimized storage configuration
SQL Server performance in Azure VMs
Azure Storage
Disk layout for SQL Server on Azure
Backups
Gathering performance information
Query Store
Azure portal
Activity Monitor
Extended Events
Identifying disk performance issues with SQL Server
Key performance features in SQL Server
Security concepts
Connecting to Azure VMs
Network security groups
Azure Security Center
Authentication
SQL Server security
Advanced data security for SQL Server on Azure VMs
Azure Active Directory
Azure Key Vault
Transparent data encryption
Always Encrypted
Dynamic data masking
Azure Disk Encryption
Auditing
Data Discovery and Classification
Summary
Chapter links
Chapter 4: SQL Server on Linux in Azure Virtual Machines
SQL Server on the Linux development ecosystem
Open-source development frameworks and tooling for SQL Server on Linux in Azure Virtual Machines
The extensibility framework and language extensions
Object-relational mapping (ORM) frameworks
Cross-platform tooling
Graphical tools
Command-line tools
Platform deployment and management for SQL Server in Azure
Supported base operating systems for running SQL Server on Linux in Azure IaaS VMs
Using an Azure Marketplace image with SQL Server on Linux pre-installed
Using a Linux Azure Marketplace image and installing SQL Server on Linux manually
Container-based deployments for SQL Server on Linux in Azure
Running multiple SQL Server containers on an IaaS VM in Azure
Container images available for SQL Server on Linux
Starting a container running SQL Server on Linux
Deploying SQL Server in containers in Azure
So many choices: which platform should you choose?
Which base operating system?
How should you choose between containers and VMs?
Why should you do this in Azure?
Summary
Chapter links
Chapter 5: Performance
Performance best practices
Virtual Machine Storage
Memory
CPU
SQL Server configuration
Dynamic management views (DMVs) and Query Store
How to optimize SQL Server on Linux
Azure BlobCache
Summary
Chapter links
Chapter 6: Moving workloads to SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines
Migration tools and best practices
Best practices
Migration and analysis tools
Migrating databases to the cloud
Application considerations
Reporting in the cloud—Power BI
Summary
Chapter links
Chapter 7: Hybrid scenarios (Microsoft SQL IaaS)
What is Azure Hybrid Benefit?
What is disaster recovery?
Recovery point objective
Recovery time objective
Accelerated database recovery
How does licensing influence disaster recovery?
Backing up databases to a URL
How to back up to a URL
Use cases for SQL Server on Azure VMs
As a backup-restore target
As an availability group replica
As a transactional replication subscriber
Hybrid scenarios
Scenario 1: Read scale workloads
Scenario 2: Migrating a workload
Scenario 3: Disaster recovery
Summary
Chapter links
Appendix A
Index