IaaS VS PaaS : Azure SQL Server

Well if we talk about SQL Server in relation with Azure platform, there isn’t anything like Software As A Service (SaaS ) for SQL Server. But we can consider it as a Database As A Service (DBaaS) under a sub-category of PaaS (Platform As A Service). In this blog we will try to learn and understand Azure IaaS vs PaaS in relation with SQL Server.

We've 4 different options available for SQL Server including Azure as well as On-Prem:

1. Traditional On-Premises

2. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

3. Managed Instance (PaaS)

4. Azure SQL Database (PaaS)

Traditional On-Premises

• This is a SQL Server installed either on Virtual Machine or the Physical Server where you own the hardware like Server, Storage and Networking, Virtualization technique and OS, and are also responsible for managing them.

• This will involve the cost of all the hardware and professionals required for configuring and managing it.

• This is generally you own a data center and manage it too and there is no involvement of any cloud vendor.

Infrastructure as a Service

• Here everything related to hardware is owned and managed by your cloud vendor like Microsoft (Azure).

• In this case when you need to have a new server you just “deploy” or create your VM (Virtual Machine) on top of the already existing Virtualization about which you don’t need to worry how is it being managed. Once you have the VM created you can install your SQL Server onto it or have a pre-installed VM image to build the VM.

• As far as DBA activities are concerned you will never know the difference between an On-premise SQL Server and a SQL Server installed on an Azure VM.

In PaaS you are just provided a platform (SQL Server in this case) and everything below that OS, Virtualization and hardware is managed by Azure. Azure provides two options in PaaS : i) Managed Instance ii) Azure SQL Database

Managed Instance (Platform as a Service)

• In Managed Instance, you don’t even know where the SQL Server is installed you just “deploy” or create a service of SQL Server and Azure is responsible for handling anything below that.

• This is a big change for a production DBA as you don’t know where your SQL server is installed, even you can’t rdp into a VM and check its services and do things like that. You have to rely more onto what information you can get from the SQL Server and the Portal.

• Here you have SQL Server and the SQL Server Agent, as far as DBA activities are considered you can do mostly everything that you can do on a SQL server installed on a VM or physical Server.

Azure SQL Database (Platform as a Service)

• In Azure SQL database, you don’t have the control on SQL Server, you just provide the database name and you get your database created on a SQL Server which is Azure SQL Server, that is basically a logical container and provides a single administrative point.

• As even SQL Server is managed by Azure and you don’t have control on it, this make it the biggest change for a DBA. There isn’t SQL Server Agent, no Server objects nor logins. The administration is done per database and you rely more onto the Azure provided features (from the portal itself) for managing and controlling it.

Taking Decision for using SQL Server based on above Options.

1) If you are a small organization or team which just want SQL Server databases in the backend and don't want headache of managing the SQL Server then Azure SQL Database is the best to opt.

2) If you are a mid organization or big team which want to reduce the management cost of Hardware and the OS and also want to move to the latest version which is on Azure, but also still want to have the SQL Server with the same capability as your On-premise SQL Server then go for Managed Instance (PaaS).

3) If you are a big organization and deciding to migrate on Azure, having applications which are still using SQL Server 2008, or want to us the data centers but still want to have control on the SQL Server/OS , then choosing Infrastructure As A Service (IAAS) platform is the best option.

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