Here is a summary of the 2h 38min duration Pluralsight SQL Azure course -
* Advantages of SQL Azure -
- Highly available
- Manageable
- Scalable
- Familiar – similar to SQL Server 2005 & 2008, but differences/limitations exist
- Maintained by MS IT
* Some differences from standard SQL Server -
- Data migration – SSIS, BCP, Scripts, SQL Azure Migration Wizard, System.Data.SqlClient.SqlBulkCopy; Restore not supported
- Transactions – possible in same DB instance only
- Collation applies only to Column & Expression level; Server, Database excluded
- Tables must have clustered index
- Supports most but not all of TSQL
* Candidate apps that can leverage SQL Azure -
- Require relational data model. Consider Windows Azure Table for other needs
- Easily partitioned data sets, 5 – 50 GB database
- All queries use one database. (Most Enterprise apps may need to access multiple DBs)
- Require high availability
* Besides Memory, Time, Disk costs, Devs must also understand SQL Azure pricing
* SQL Azure pricing based on usage units: Web (upto 149 databases of 1—5GB each possible) or Business (upto 15 databases of 10—50GB each possible)
* No cost for data transfer if SQL & Azure are on the same availability zone
* Bill accessible through Windows Azure Portal
* SQL Azure usage scenarios -
- Cloud Hub Data Collaboration
- Scale-out Enterprise Applications
- Departmental Applications
- SaaS
- BI
* MS Tools to access SQL Azure – SSMS, Visual Studio, SQL Azure Portal
* Understand Connection termination failure codes to manage recovery -
- System is busy, reconnect after 10s: 40501
- Database hit maximum size: 40544
- Transaction Termination: 40549
- Lock Consumption: 40550
- TempDB uses 5GB: 40551
- Log File issues: 40552
- Excessive Memory Usage: 40553
* Ideal candidates for migration to SQL Azure –
- Tables with indices
- Transations stay in a single db
- DB under 50GB
* Tasks in migration -
- Migrate users & login IDs
- Map data types
- Map db objects: tables, triggers, views, SPs
- Update incompatible objects to work with SQL Azure
- Update apps to work with SQL Azure
- Migrate data to SQL Azure
* It is possible to expose SQL Azure database over OData especially to non-SQL consumers
* OData makes your data consumable everywhere
* OData is a web protocol for querying & updating data
* OData builds on HTTP, Atom Publishing Protocol, JSON
* Feeds may supply more than one collection
* SQL Azure can feed needs of data analysis (through Excel, SSRS etc)
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