Azure "The Best to catch a breath for your self"
July 27, 2016

Azure "The Best to catch a breath for your self"

Zimran Azim | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Azure SQL Database

Azure database is currently used by a specific department at my organization and we mainly focus on auditing and monitoring so it pretty much serves our purpose and most importantly it is easily secured with firewall and DNS resolutions. Migrating databases is no more a hectic task from shifting a large scale database to a more managed engine.
  • The great thing about is even you are a pro or a newbie with Azure, you will not be tired of setting up SQL Server, the befitting pipelining of AZURE to cloud service where you don't need it onsite.
  • You always don't need to update services, patches and deployment of supporting services. Cloud does make it someone else's job to do this.
  • Generally obviates the need for building high availability architectures; Azure databases built within it are automatically highly available.
  • Highly scalable and has vast support for non Microsoft technologies.
  • One of the ways SQL Azure manifests being part of the whole stack is by offering multiple levels of implementation. If you simply need a website and a database, you can hitch an SQL Azure instance to an Azure website and be done with it.
  • No schedulers available in case you require cron jobs.
  • Certain username are not allowed (root, admin, administrator).
  • As compared to On Site SQL server AZURE is less hectic and less responsibility to worry for.
  • It pretty much easy to follow devOps or Agile for Backlogs as AZURE allows to take care of its own things.
  • Database scalability, Patching and Upgrading is the best thing it gives in return
It's more easy to shift and get all the services up in no time, provide best up time and monitoring easily so you can get the best services which take care of themselves. It's a better fitting for a large company size.
Sync and migration tools: If you already have a clutch of SQL Server-stored data somewhere and want to either sync it with SQL Azure or passively migrate it via sync, Microsoft has published a service -- the appropriately named SQL Data Sync to accomplish this. Use of the service itself is free, and all inbound data to Azure costs nothing, so you won't have to worry about racking up costs by syncing gigabyte-sized tables.

Azure SQL Database Feature Ratings

Automatic software patching
8
Database scalability
9
Automated backups
9
Database security provisions
9
Monitoring and metrics
9
Automatic host deployment
9

Using Azure SQL Database

5 - Business Analyst area, Database Administrators, System Administrators; so it more of an IT team.
2 - The typical person who must have skills to support azure are database development, data drilling, patching, IaaS(infrastructure as a service), PasS(platform as a service) and SaaS (software as a service).
  • Migration and management
  • Monitoring
  • Updation of database and services
  • Does not require onsite infrastructure
  • Unlike onsite databases, scaling up or scaling down is very easy with Azure SQL Database.
  • Moving to Azure SQL Database will free up your DBA to work on the backlog of projects that often never get done because they spend a lot of time maintaining and monitoring onsite SQL.
  • Use it via a VM if you need it.
  • Applications written for multiple databases.
  • Elasticity. A much-abused buzzword, but in SQL Azure's case, it applies.
This is best solution as a DBA one could expect from a service provider and as a cloud service, it removes all your hassles.

Evaluating Azure SQL Database and Competitors

  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Vendor Reputation
  • Analyst Reports
  • Third-party Reviews
Even if I have to re-evaluate, I don't want to change anything.

Azure SQL Database Support

It has been a drastic change but the shift was so smooth.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Kept well informed
Immediate help available
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
No - Well the plans are pretty expensive, so I definitely do not require the premium support for my extensive services. I always shift to a solution which is an alternative.
When shifting from the initial from SQL server the best thing was without any clue, they provided 0 - 100 procedure to set everything up.