1.
Should I move my database
to the cloud?
James Serra
Big Data Evangelist
Microsoft
JamesSerra3@gmail.com
(On-prem vs IaaS VM vs SQL DB/DW)

2.
About Me
 Microsoft, Big Data Evangelist
 In IT for 30 years, worked on many BI and DW projects
 Worked as desktop/web/database developer, DBA, BI and DW architect and developer, MDM
architect, PDW/APS developer
 Been perm employee, contractor, consultant, business owner
 Presenter at PASS Business Analytics Conference, PASS Summit, Enterprise Data World conference
 Certifications: MCSE: Data Platform, Business Intelligence; MS: Architecting Microsoft Azure
Solutions, Design and Implement Big Data Analytics Solutions, Design and Implement Cloud Data
Platform Solutions
 Blog at JamesSerra.com
 Former SQL Server MVP
 Author of book “Reporting with Microsoft SQL Server 2012”

3.
Should I move my database to the cloud?
Thank your for attending, please fill out the evaluation cards…

4.
Agenda
 SQL Server on-prem
 SQL Server continuum
 SQL Server in an Azure VM (IaaS)
 Azure SQL Database (PaaS/DBaaS)
 Azure SQL Data Warehouse (PaaS/DBaaS)
 Summary

5.
Benefits of the cloud
Agility
• Grow hardware as demand is needed (unlimited elastic scale). Change hardware instantly
• Reduce hardware as demand lessons or turn off if not used (pay for what you need)
Innovation
• Fire up a server quickly (abbreviated infrastructure implementation build-out times). Low barrier of entry and quicker “Time to
market”
• Make it easy to experiment, fail fast
Risk
• Availability - High availability and disaster recovery built-in or easy to implement
• Reliability - Four nines SLA, storage durability, network redundancy, automatic geography redundancy
• Security - The cloud datacenters have the ultimate in security
Other
• Cost savings: facility (co-location space, power, cooling, lights), hardware, software license, implementation, etc
• No need to manage the hardware infrastructure, reallocating staff
• No commitment or long-term vendor lock
• Allows companies to benefit from changes in the technology impacting the latest storage solutions
• More frequent updates to OS, sql server, etc, done for you
• Really helpful for proof-of-concept (POC) or development projects with a known lifespan

6.
Constraints of on-premise data
• Scale constrained to on-premise procurement
• Capex up-front costs, most companies instead prefer a yearly operating expense (OpEx)
• A staff of employees or consultants must be retained to administer and support the hardware and software
in place
• Expertise needed for tuning and deployment
• Lack of room in the datacenter

7.
Reasons not to move a database to cloud
• No internet connection (deep mine) or slow internet connection (offshore oil rig)
• Millisecond performance required (servers in high-volume package plant)
• Applications will stay on-prem
• Locked-in lease of datacenter with new equipment
• Large amount of on-prem born data
• Huge migration effort for a short life span database
• Extremely sensitive data
This just means some databases should not be moved, but many others can!

8.
SQL Server 2005
SQL Server 2008
SQL Server 2008 R2
SQL Server 2012
SQL Server 2014
SQL Server 2016
Performance &
productivity
Mission critical Self-service BI Cloud-ready
Mission critical &
cloud performance
Advanced analytics
& rich visualizations

9.
It can handle up to 384-cores and 24TB of memory! It use the HPE 3PAR StoreServ 8450 storage array
which consists of 192 SSD drives (480GB/drive) for a total of 92TB of disk space.

10.
Options for data warehouse solutions
Balancing flexibility
and choice
By yourself With a reference
architecture
With an appliance
Tuning and optimization
Installation
Configuration
Tuning and optimization
Installation
Configuration
Installation
Tuning and optimization
HIGH
LOW
Time to
solution
Optional, if you have hardware already
Existing or procured
hardware and support
Procured software and
support
Offerings
• SQL Server 2014/2016
• Windows Server 2012 R2/2016
• System Center 2012 R2/2016
Offerings
• Private Cloud Fast Track
• Data Warehouse Fast Track
• Build or purchase
Offerings
• Analytics Platform System
Existing or procured
hardware and support
Procured software and
support
Procured appliance and
support
HIGH
Price

11.
A workload-specific
database system design
and validation program
for Microsoft partners
and customers
Hardware system design
• Tight specifications for servers, storage, and
networking
• Resource balanced and validated
• Latest-generation servers and storage,
including solid-state disks (SSDs)
Database configuration
• Workload-specific
• Database architecture
• SQL Server settings
• Windows Server settings
• Performance guidance
Software
• SQL Server 2016 Enterprise
• Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server
2012 R2
SQL Server 2016
Processors
Networking
Servers
Storage
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/data-warehouse-fast-track

12.
Parallelism
• Uses many separate CPUs running in parallel to execute a single
program
• Shared Nothing: Each CPU has its own memory and disk (scale-out)
• Segments communicate using high-speed network between nodes
MPP - Massively
Parallel
Processing
• Multiple CPUs used to complete individual processes simultaneously
• All CPUs share the same memory, disks, and network controllers (scale-up)
• All SQL Server implementations up until now have been SMP
• Mostly, the solution is housed on a shared SAN
SMP - Symmetric
Multiprocessing

13.
Microsoft Analytics Platform System

14.
SQL Server Azure VM
Azure SQL DB
Azure SQL DW
Fast Track for SQL Server
Analytics Platform System
SQL Server 2016 + Superdome X
Analytics Platform System
Hadoop
Azure Data Lake Analytics
Azure Data Lake Store
Relational
Federated Query
Power BI
Azure Machine Learning
Azure Data Factory
Non-Relational
CloudOn-Premises

15.
Who manages what?
Infrastructure
as a Service
Storage
Servers
Networking
O/S
Middleware
Virtualization
Data
Applications
Runtime
ManagedbyMicrosoft
Youscale,make
resilient&manage
Platform
as a Service
Scale,Resilienceand
managementbyMicrosoft
Youmanage
Storage
Servers
Networking
O/S
Middleware
Virtualization
Applications
Runtime
Data
On Premises
Physical / Virtual
Youscale,makeresilientandmanage
Storage
Servers
Networking
O/S
Middleware
Virtualization
Data
Applications
Runtime
Software
as a Service
Storage
Servers
Networking
O/S
Middleware
Virtualization
Applications
Runtime
Data
Scale,Resilienceand
managementbyMicrosoft
Windows Azure
Virtual Machines
Windows Azure
Cloud Services

16.
One consistent platform
with common tools.
CloudOn-Premises
The data platform continuum

17.
 VM hosted on Microsoft Azure Infrastructure (“IaaS”)
• From Microsoft images (gallery) or your own images (custom)
SQL 2008R2 / 2012 / 2014 / 2016 Web / Standard / Enterprise
Images refreshed with latest version, SP, CU
• Fast provisioning (~10 minutes).
• Accessible via RDP and Powershell
• Full compatibility with SQL Server “Box” software
 Pay per use
• Per minute (only when running)
• Cost depends on size and licensing
• EA customers can use existing SQL licenses (BYOL)
• Network: only outgoing (not incoming)
• Storage: only used (not allocated)
 Elasticity
• 1 core / 2 GB mem / 1 TB   32 cores / 448 GB mem / 64 TB

18.






 DS-Series: Same CPU and memory as D-Series. Support Premium Storage (good for Data, Log, and TempDB!!)


 GS-Series: Fastest CPU, most memory. Support Premium Storage



Azure calculator: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/

19.
VM Gallery Images via Azure Marketplace
Certified pre-configured software images (1250 on 2/23/2017)
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/virtual-machines/

20.
Azure Quickstart Templates
Free community contributed templates (467 on 2/23/17) https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/templates/

21.
Virtual Machine storage architecture
C:
OS disk (127 GB)
Usually 115 GB free
E:, F:, etc.
Data disks (1 TB)
Attach SSD/HDD up to 1TB. These
are .vhd files
D:
Temporary disk
(Contents can be lost)
SSD/HDD and size depends on VM
chosenDisk Cache

22.
Azure Default Blob Storage
 Azure Storage Page Blobs, 3 copies
 Storage high durability built-in (like have RAID)
 VHD disks, up to 1 TB per disk (64 TB total)

23.
Storage configuration
Automatically creates one
Windows storage space
(virtual drive) across all disks.
Up to 64 1TB disks for 64TB of
drive space.

24.
Azure Regions
40 Regions Worldwide, 34 Generally Available
 100+ datacenters
 Top 3 networks in the world
 2.5x AWS, 7x Google DC Regions
 G Series – Largest VM in World, 32 cores, 448GB Ram, SSD…

25.
Migrating Data
Migrate from on-prem SQL server to Azure VM IaaS:
• Use the Deploy a SQL Server Database to a Microsoft Azure VM wizard. Recommended method for migrating an on-premises user database
when the compressed database backup file is less than 1 TB. Use on SQL Server 2005 or greater to SQL Server 2014 or greater
• Perform on-premises backup using compression and manually copy the backup file into the Azure virtual machine and then do a restore (only if
you cannot use the above wizard or the database backup size is larger than 1 TB). Use on SQL Server 2005 or greater to SQL Server 2005 or
greater
• Perform a backup to URL and restore into the Azure virtual machine from the URL. Use on SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU2 or greater to SQL Server
2012 SP1 CU2 or greater
• Detach and then copy the data and log files to Azure blob storage and then attach to SQL Server in Azure VM from URL. Use on SQL Server 2005
or greater to SQL Server 2014 or greater
• Convert on-premises physical machine to Hyper-V VHD, upload to Azure Blob storage, and then deploy as new VM using uploaded VHD. Use
when bringing your own SQL Server license, when migrating a database that you will run on an older version of SQL Server, or when migrating
system and user databases together as part of the migration of database dependent on other user databases and/or system databases. Use on
SQL Server 2005 or greater to SQL Server 2005 or greater
• Ship hard drive using Windows Import/Export Service. Use when manual copy method is too slow, such as with very large databases. Use on SQL
Server 2005 or greater to SQL Server 2005 or greater
• If you have an AlwaysOn deployment on-premises and want to minimize downtime, use the Add Azure Replica Wizard to create a replica in Azure
and then failover, pointing users to the Azure database instance. Use on SQL Server 2012 or greater to SQL Server 2012 or greater
• If you do not have an AlwaysOn deployment on-premises and want to minimize downtime, use SQL Server transactional replication to configure
the Azure SQL Server instance as a subscriber and then disable replication, pointing users to the Azure database instance. Use on SQL Server
2005 or greater to SQL Server 2005 or greater
• Others: data-tier application, transact-SQL scripts, sql server import and export wizard, SSIS, copy database wizard

26.
Scale VMs

27.
Scale VMs
PowerShell script

28.
HA/DR deployment architectures
Azure Only
Availability replicas
running across
multiple datacenters
in Azure VMs for
disaster recovery.
Cross-region solution
protects against
complete site outage.
Hybrid
Some availability
replicas running in
Azure VMs and other
replicas running on-
premises for cross-
site disaster recovery.
HA only, not DR
FCI on a two-node
WSFC running in
Azure VMs with
storage supported by
a third-party
clustering solution.
FCI on a two-node
WSFC running in
Azure VMs with
remote iSCSI Target
shared block storage
via ExpressRoute.
Azure Only
Principal and mirror
and servers running
in different
datacenters for
disaster recovery.
Principal, Mirror, and
Witness run within
same Azure data
center, deployed
using a DC or server
certificates for HA.
Hybrid
One partner running
in an Azure VM and
the other running
on-premises for
cross-site disaster
recovery using server
certificates.
For DR only /
Hybrid only
One server running in
an Azure VM and the
other running on-
premises for cross-
site disaster recovery.
Log shipping
depends on Windows
file sharing, so a VPN
connection between
the Azure virtual
network and the on-
premises network is
required.
Requires AD
deployment on DR
site.
On-prem or Azure
production databases
backed up directly to
Azure blob storage
for disaster recovery.
SQL 2016: Backup to
Azure with file
snapshots
Simpler BCDR story
Site Recovery makes
it easy to handle
replication, failover
and recovery for your
on-premises
workloads and
applications (not
data!).
Flexible replication
You can replicate on-
premises servers,
Hyper-V virtual
machines, and
VMware virtual
machines.
Eliminate the need
for secondary
Native support for
SQL Server data files
stored as Azure blobs

29.
SQL Server in Azure VM Best Practices
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-sql-server-performance-best-practices/

30.
SQL Database Service
A relational database-as-a-service, fully managed by Microsoft.
For cloud-designed apps when near-zero administration and enterprise-grade capabilities are key.
Perfect for organizations looking to dramatically increase the DB:IT ratio.

31.
Azure SQL Database benefits
*Data source & customer quotes: The Business Value of Microsoft Azure SQL Database Services, IDC, March 2015
“Now, those people can do
development and create more
revenue opportunities for us.”
Increased productivity
47% staff hours
reclaimed for other
tasks
“We can get things out faster with
Azure SQL Database”
Faster time to market
75% faster
app deployment cycles
“To be able to do what we’re
doing in Azure, we’d need an
investment of millions.”
Lower TCO
53% less expensive
than on-prem/hosted
“The last time we had downtime, a
half a day probably lost us $100k”
Reduced risks
71% fewer cases of
unplanned downtime
Other
Azure SQL
Database
DB management hours

32.
Designed for predictable performance
Across Basic, Standard, and Premium, each performance level is
assigned a defined level of throughput
Introducing the Database Transaction Unit (DTU) which
represents database power and replaces hardware specs
Redefined
Measure of
power
% CPU
% read % write
% memory
Basic — 5 DTU S0 — 10 DTU
S1 — 20 DTU
S2 — 50 DTU
S3 — 100 DTU
DTU is defined by the bounding box for the
resources required by a database workload and
measures power across the six performance levels.
P1 — 125 DTU
P2 — 250 DTU
P4 — 500 DTU
P6 — 1,000 DTU
P11 — 1,750 DTU
P15 — 4,000 DTU

33.
Scale DTU’s

34.
Setup Disaster Recovery

35.
Reads are completed at the primary
Writes are replicated to secondaries
Single logical database
Write
Write Ack
Ack
Read
value write
Ack
Critical capabilities:
 Create new replica
 Synchronize data
 Stay consistent
 Detect failures
 Failover
 99.99% availability
High-availability platform

36.
Protect from data loss or corruption
Automatic backups
Self-service restore
Tiered retention policy
– 7 days Basic
– 35 days Standard & Premium
– Weekly backups up to 10 years
(public preview)
Restore from backup
SQL Database
Backups
sabcp01bl21
Azure Storage
sabcp01bl21
Restore to point-in-time or to point-of-deletion

37.
Restore from geo-redundant
backups maintained in Azure
Storage
Restore to any Azure region
Built-in disaster recovery capability available for every database
Geo-restore protects from disaster
SQL Database
Backups
sabcp01bl21
Azure Storage
sabcp01bl21
Restore to any
Azure region
Geo-redundant

38.
Active geo-replication
Mission critical business continuity
Up to 4 secondaries
Service levels Basic, Standard and
Premium
Self Service
Readable Secondaries Up to 4
Regions available Any Azure region
Replication Automatic,
Asynchronous
Manageability tools REST API, PowerShell
or Azure Portal
Recovery Time
Objective (RTO)
<1 hour
Recovery Point
Objective
<5 mins
Failover On Demand

39.
Azure SQL Database service tiers

40.
SQL Server Management Studio
(SSMS)
SQL Azure Migration Wizard
(SAMW)
SQL Server Data Tools in Visual
Studio
Microsoft Data Migration Assistant
(DMA)
Migration tools
My blog:
Migrate from on-prem SQL server to Azure
SQL Database

41.
Which one to use?
SQL Server in Azure VM
Need a specific version of SQL Server or Windows
Need instance-level SQL features (e.g. Agent Job,
Linked Servers, DTC)
Ok configuring/managing SQL Server and Windows
(patching, high availability, backups)
Great for migrating existing apps
Azure SQL Database
Don’t need a specific version of SQL Server or
Windows
Don’t need instance-level SQL features
Don’t want to configure and manage SQL Server or
Windows (high availability built-in, auto backups)
Great for new apps
Many customers use both

42.
SQL Server in Azure VM
You access a VM with SQL Server installed
You manage SQL Server and Windows (patching,
high availability, backups)
You select the SQL Server and Windows version and
edition
Different VM sizes: A0 (1 core, 1GB mem, 20GB) to
GS5 (32 cores, 448GB mem, 64TB)
VM availability SLA: 99.95% (No SQL SLA)
Azure SQL Database
You access a database
Database is fully managed
Runs latest SQL Server version with Enterprise
edition
Different DB sizes: Basic (2GB, 5tps) to Premium
(1TB, 4000tps)
DB availability SLA: 99.99%
Details

43.
When to use IaaS vs PaaS
See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-paas-vs-sql-server-iaas

44.
Limitations and Enhancements
Limitations:
• Database Size
• VNET
• Cross database joins
• Resource Governor
• SQL Agent
• SSIS
• CLR
• Limited scaling options
Enhancements
• Database Advisor (recommendations: index
tuning, parameterized queries, schema
issues)
• Query performance insight
• Query store
• Auditing and threat detection
See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-features,
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-transact-sql-information

45.
SQL DW: Building on SQL DB Foundation
Elastic, Petabyte Scale
DW Optimized
99.99% uptime SLA,
Geo-restore
Azure Compliance (ISO, HIPAA, EU, etc.)
True SQL Server Experience;
Existing Tools Just Work
SQL DW
SQL DB
Service Tiers

46.
Elastic scale & performance
Real-time elasticity
Resize in <1 minute On-demand compute
Expand or reduce
as needed

47.
Scale DWU’s

48.
Market leading price/performance
Query unstructured data via PolyBase/T-SQL
PolyBase
Scale out compute
SQL DW Instance
Hadoop VMs /
Azure Storage
Any data, any size, anywhere

49.
When Paused, Pay only for Storage
Use it only when you need it – no reloading / restoring of data
Save Costs with Dynamic Pause and Resume
• When paused, cloud-scale storage is min cost.
• Policy-based (i.e. Nights/weekends)
• Automate via PowerShell/REST API
• Data remains in place

50.
• Auto backups, every 4 hours
• On-demand backups in Azure Storage
• REST API, PowerShell or Azure Portal
• Scheduled exports
• Near-online backup/restore
• Backups retention policy:
• Auto backups, up to 35 days
• On-demand backups
retained indefinitely
Geo- replicated
Restore from backup
SQL DW backups
sabcp01bl21
Azure Storage
sabcp01bl21
Automatic backup and geo-restore
Recover from data deletion or alteration or disaster

51.
Summary: Azure SQL DW Service
A relational data warehouse-as-a-service, fully managed by Microsoft.
Industries first elastic cloud data warehouse with enterprise-grade capabilities.
Support your smallest to your largest data storage needs while handling queries up to 100x faster.

52.
Limitations and Enhancements
Limitations:
• ANSI joins on updates
• ANSI joins on deletes
• merge statement
• cross-database joins
• cursors
• INSERT..EXEC
• output clause
• inline user-defined functions
• multi-statement functions
• common table expressions
• [recursive common table expressions (CTE)](#Recursive-common-table-
expressions-(CTE)
• CLR functions and procedures
• $partition function
• table variables
• table value parameters
• distributed transactions
• commit / rollback work
• save transaction
• execution contexts (EXECUTE AS)
• group by clause with rollup / cube / grouping sets options
• nesting levels beyond 8
• updating through views
• use of select for variable assignment
• no MAX data type for dynamic SQL strings
Enhancements:
• TBD
See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-data-warehouse/sql-data-warehouse-migrate-code
Best practices:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-data-warehouse/sql-data-warehouse-best-practices
Load data:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-data-warehouse/sql-data-warehouse-overview-load

53.
Why Azure SQL Database?
yougetmaximumcontrolovereverything…
App Optimization
Scaling
High Availability
Disaster Recovery
Backup
Database Patches
OS Patches
App Optimization
Scaling
High Availability
Disaster Recovery
Backup
Database Patches
OS Patches
App Optimization
SQL Server in a VM Azure SQL Database
Focus on your app
Gain 406% ROI
Microsoft fully manages
•
•
You gain:
•
•
•
•
•
•

54.
SQL 2016/APS/SQL DW At-a-Glance
Workload OLTP or Mixed (OLTP-DW-BI) Data Warehouse Data Warehouse
Good for: High volume of simple queries Good for: Mid-high complex queries Good for: Mid-high complex queries
Limited complex queries Low volume of transactional queries Low volume of transactional queries
SQL Server 2016 Analytics Platform
System
Azure SQL Data
Warehouse
Data Volume Up to 100TB (DW Fast Track tested) 6 petabyte 1 petabyte
Deployment DIY/Reference Architecture Integrated System PaaS
Architecture SMP/Scale-up/Hybrid MPP/Scale-out/On-Premises MPP/Scale-out/Cloud
Competitors Oracle Exadata, IBM DB2 Teradata, IBM PureSystems AWS, various start-ups
Key Features In-Database Analytics In-Database Analytics* In-Database Analytics
PolyBase PolyBase PolyBase
CCI CCI CCI
Geospatial Geospatial* Geospatial*
Always Encrypted Always Encrypted* Always Encrypted*
In-memory
Stretch DB
*This feature is on the product roadmap for APS and SQL DW

55.
In closing…
Moving to the cloud is a “no brainer”, it’s just a question of when!

56.
Resources
 Should you move your data to the cloud? http://bit.ly/1xuXbKU
 Migrating SQL Server Database to Azure eBook: http://bit.ly/27s6slX

57.
Other Related Presentations
 Benefits of the Azure cloud
 Should I move my database to the cloud?
 Implement SQL Server on a Azure VM
 Relational databases vs Non-relational databases
 Introducing Azure SQL Database
 Introducing Azure SQL Data Warehouse
Visit my blog at: JamesSerra.com (where these slide decks are posted under the “Presentation” tab)

58.
Azure getting started
• Free Azure account, $200 in credit, https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/
• Startups: BizSpark, $750/month free Azure, BizSpark Plus - $120k/year free Azure,
https://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/
• MSDN subscription, $150/month free Azure, https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/member-
offers/msdn-benefits/
• Microsoft Educator Grant Program, faculty - $250/month free Azure for a year, students -
$100/month free Azure for 6 months, https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/member-
offers/msdn-benefits/
• Microsoft Azure for Research Grant, http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/projects/azure/default.aspx
• DreamSpark for students, https://www.dreamspark.com/Student/Default.aspx
• DreamSpark for academic institutions: https://www.dreamspark.com/Institution/Subscription.aspx
• Various Microsoft funds

59.
Q & A ?
James Serra, Big Data Evangelist
Email me at: JamesSerra3@gmail.com
Follow me at: @JamesSerra
Link to me at: www.linkedin.com/in/JamesSerra
Visit my blog at: JamesSerra.com (where this slide deck is posted under the “Presentations” tab)