SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines

SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines

by Joey D'Antoni, Louis Davidson, Allan Hirt, John Martin, Anthony Nocentino, Tim Radney, Randolph West
Released June 2020
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781800204591

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Book description

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

Product information

  • Title: SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines
  • Author(s): Joey D'Antoni, Louis Davidson, Allan Hirt, John Martin, Anthony Nocentino, Tim Radney, Randolph West
  • Release date: June 2020
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781800204591