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 Ramadan

Supervised by:

Prof. Dr. Ibrahim El Henawy

Microsoft Azure provides a couple options for using a SQL Database 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

Best for o New cloud-designed applications that
have time constraints in development and
marketing.
o Applications that need built-in high
availability, disaster recovery, and
upgrade mechanisms.
o Teams that do not want to manage the
underlying operating system and
configuration settings.
o Applications using scale-out patterns.
o Databases of up to 1 TB in size.
o Building Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
applications.
Resources o You do not want to employ IT resources
for support and maintenance of the
underlying infrastructure.
o You want to focus on the application
layer.
o Existing applications that require fast migration to the cloud with
minimal changes.
o SQL Server applications that require access to on-premises resources
(such as Active Directory) from Azure via a secure tunnel.
o If you need a customized IT environment with full administrative
rights.
o Rapid development and test scenarios when you do not want to buy
on-premises non-production SQL Server hardware.
o Disaster recovery for on-premises SQL Server applications using
[backup to Azure
Storage](http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/jj919148.aspx) or
AlwaysOn replicas with Azure VMs.
o Large databases that are bigger than 1 TB in size.
o You have IT resources for support and maintenance.
 SQL Database
Total cost of o Eliminates hardware costs. Reduces
ownership administrative costs.
Business o In addition to built-in fault tolerance
continuity infrastructure capabilities, Azure SQL
Database provides features, such as Point
in Time Restore, Geo-Restore, and Geo-
Replication to increase business
continuity. For more information, see [SQL
Database business continuity
overview](sql-database-business-
continuity.md).
Hybrid cloud o Your on-premises application can access
data in Azure SQL Database.
SQL Server in Azure VM
o Eliminates hardware costs.
o SQL Server on Azure VMs lets you to set up a high availability and
disaster recovery solution for your database’s specific needs.
Therefore, you can have a system that is highly optimized for your
application. You can test and run failovers by yourself when needed.
For more information, see [High Availability and Disaster Recovery for
SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines](../virtual-machines/virtual-
machines-windows-sql-high-availability-dr.md).
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 system 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.