Azure SQL Database– Gaining the Azure Data Engineer Associate Certification
This product is on the other side of the cloud service spectrum when compared to SQL Server on Azure VMs. An Azure SQL Database (SQL DB) is a relational DBaaS that offers not only the outsourcing of network and hardware infrastructure, but also operating system and DBMS responsibilities. All you need to worry about is the data and innovation. There is also a serverless (i.e., elastic) version of this product, which means your compute and storage expands and contracts on demand. Notice that the name of this product is singular, meaning it is a single database. You can have numerous Azure SQL Databases running on Azure, but they are isolated from each other.
Azure SQL Managed Instances (SQL MI)
Azure SQL Managed Instances (SQL MI) is most relevant when you want to migrate an existing SQL Server workload from a private datacenter to Azure. It is optimized for lift‐and‐shift scenarios. It is a PaaS service offering and supports a collection of databases manageable from a single management console.
Additional Azure Databases
Here are a few other Azure databases that are not part of the Azure Cosmos DB suite or Azure SQL Server offerings.
MariaDB MariaDB is a relational database running on Azure based on the MariaDB community edition. You can choose to run this database as either IaaS or PaaS.
MySQL MySQL is a relational database running on Azure based on the MySQL Community Edition. You can choose to run this database as either IaaS or PaaS.
PostgreSQL PostgreSQL is a relational database running on Azure based on the PostgreSQL Community Edition. You can choose either the IaaS or PaaS offering.
Other Products
The following are database‐related Azure products that play an important role. They might not be on the exam, but they are good to know about nonetheless.
Azure Migrate This is the recommended tool to use for planning migrations to Azure. Azure Migrate will analyze all your on‐premises servers, data, applications, and infrastructure to assess the effort and complexities of the migration.
Azure Database Migration Service You can use Azure Database Migration Service (DMS) to migrate data from multiple on‐premises database sources, with minimal downtime to Azure data services.
Azure Data Box Azure Data Box helps you migrate large amounts of data to Azure. This service is optimized for data larger than 40 TB, with a maximum of 80 TB. Moving that kind of data across a network of any kind would not be possible. You place your data on a secure storage device, ship it to an Azure datacenter, and someone loads the data onto a storage point.
SQL Server Integrated Services This tool is useful for building data transformation and data integration solutions. You might notice some similarities between SSIS and Azure Data Factory or Azure Synapse Analytics as you work through your exam prep. SSIS is useful for pulling data from numerous datastores, transforming the data, and storing it on a central datastore for analysis. The central datastore historically is a data warehouse.
SQL Server Management Studio SSMS is a GUI that provides tools and features for creating and managing SQL Server databases. It supports the editing and execution of queries, performing complex administrative tasks, security management, and vulnerability assessments. Using SSMS, a database administrator (DBA) can perform most tasks required to maintain a database. SSMS can be used on SQL Server databases running on the Azure platform as well as on‐premises. This GUI runs only on Windows.
Azure Data Studio This product is a more feature‐limited version of SSMS. It can be run cross‐platform, meaning it can run on Windows, Linux, and macOS. It is useful for creating and running SQL queries but not useful if deep administrative actions are necessary. However, many admin actions can be performed through an integrated terminal using PowerShell or sqlcmd.
This product is on the other side of the cloud service spectrum when compared to SQL Server on Azure VMs. An Azure SQL Database (SQL DB) is a relational DBaaS that offers not only the outsourcing of network and hardware infrastructure, but also operating system and DBMS responsibilities. All you need to worry about is…
