Experience in creating and monitoring Azure SQL Server databases. Azure SQL Managed Instance High availability is implemented using a technology similar to SQL Server Always On availability groups. Name your cluster and provide a storage account to use as the Cloud Witness. More info about Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge, Extending on-premises data solutions to the cloud, DTU-based purchasing model for SQL Database, vCore-based purchasing model for both SQL Database and SQL Managed Instance, License Mobility through Software Assurance on Azure, SQL Database & SQL Managed Instance pricing, Virtual Machine and Cloud Service Sizes for Azure, Performance Best Practices for SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines, Provision a SQL Server virtual machine in Azure, Identify the right SQL Database or SQL Managed Instance SKU for your on-premises database. What is SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines? Alternatively, to use a named instance with an Azure Marketplace SQL Server image, follow these steps: Use the Azure portal or Azure PowerShell to check the status of the extension. SQL Server instances with up to 256 TB of storage. For more information on high availability in Hyperscale, see Database High Availability in Hyperscale. One is for the internal load balancer. However, we recognize that you may want to test how the automatic failover operations initiated during planned or unplanned events would impact an application before you deploy it to production. For more information about running SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines, see the What is SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines?. Ongoing administration costs are reduced since you do not have to manage any virtual machines, operating system, or database software. If you don't already have an existing cluster, create it by using the Azure portal with these steps: Navigate to your SQL virtual machines resource. They will learn to calculate resource requirements and understand hybrid approaches. Named replicas are not currently supported. The data tier is a replicated database, object storage, or file storage. Automates the scheduling of backups for all databases for either the default instance or a, Configures a maintenance window during which important Windows and SQL Server security updates to your VM can take place, so you can avoid updates during peak times for your workload. You achieve high availability by redundancy, and you'll configure multiple dialog instances in different instances of Azure Virtual Machines. High compatibility with SQL Server. Regardless of how you choose to use Windows Azure, you will have to plan for both disaster recovery and high availability in your deployment. Use zone-redundant services to automatically achieve resiliency. To view the logs for the deployment, and check the deployment history, follow these steps: Select the deployment of interest to learn more about the deployment. SQL Basics; Domain Name Registrars; Pages. This will physically remove the nodes from the cluster, and destroy the cluster: If these are the only VMs in the cluster, then the cluster will be destroyed. With Azure SQL, you can: There are several factors that can influence your decision to choose between the different data offerings: As seen in the diagram, each service offering can be characterized by the level of administration you have over the infrastructure, and by the degree of cost efficiency. In the case of a zone-redundant serverless or provisioned General Purpose database or elastic pool, the API call would result in redirecting client connections to the new primary in an Availability Zone different from the Availability Zone of the old primary. Select the SQL Server VMs you want to add to the cluster. To configure an Always On availability group using the Azure portal, you must have the following prerequisites: You need the following account permissions to configure the availability group by using the Azure portal: Configure the cluster by using the Azure portal. By default, the cluster of nodes for the premium availability model is created in the same datacenter. Some common resolutions: Once the availability group is deployed, consider optimizing the HADR settings for SQL Server on Azure VMs. These apps have an SLA of 99.9% if you use Azure Premium SSD disks. Use the Azure portal (support + troubleshooting) to evaluate resource health and history; submit new support requests when needed. Deploy single VMs without specifying a zone, so they're distributed throughout a region. Allows you to view a graphical representation of the disk utilization of your SQL data files in the Azure portal. Because the restart operation is intrusive and a large number of them could stress the platform, only one failover call is allowed every 15 minutes for each database, elastic pool, or managed instance. Moreover, shared folders will be always on, meaning that if one file server fails, the second file server should be available with exactly the same shared folders. More info about Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge, How to initiate a manual failover on SQL Managed Instance, A stateful data layer with the database files (.mdf/.ldf) that are stored in Azure Blob storage. With SQL on Azure VMs, you can use any of the platform-provided SQL Server images (which includes a license) or bring your SQL Server license. Once failover is complete, Azure SQL connections are automatically redirected to the new primary node. To access materials please fill out the form below. In addition, SQL Database and SQL Managed Instance use the Always On availability group technology from the SQL Server instance for replication and failover. Review the following common errors and their resolutions. And the biggest advantage is that the secondary server is usable (read-only, backups, etc.). One of the first things to understand in any discussion of Azure versus on-premises SQL Server databases is that you can use it all. . Azure blob storage has built-in data availability and redundancy feature. Data Guard is one offering from Oracle that ensures high availability, data protection, and disaster recovery for enterprise data. You can check the status of your deployment in the Activity log which is accessible from the bell icon in the top navigation bar. Spend more time innovating and less time patching, updating, and backing up your databases. This alternative isn't specifically detailed in the examples, but could be added to any of the solutions. The principle of least privilege model is enabled by default for SQL Server VMs deployed via Azure Marketplace after October 2022. SQL Database and SQL Managed Instance can quickly recover even in the most critical circumstances ensuring that your data is always available. By selecting a zone-redundant configuration, you can make your Premium or Business Critical databases resilient to a much larger set of failures, including catastrophic datacenter outages, without any changes to the application logic. The below steps use SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) but you can use Transact-SQL or PowerShell as well. Select Configure listener to open the Configure availability group listener page. By default, the Azure SQL database service provides high availability. This video shows you how to use the automatic HA Setup in Azure SQL VM's.Official Documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/virtual-mac. See Feature benefits later in this article for details. You should see the SqlIaasExtension extension listed, as in the following example: You can also use the Get-AzVMSqlServerExtension Azure PowerShell cmdlet: The previous command confirms that the agent is installed and provides general status information. To make an existing Hyperscale database zone redundant, use Azure PowerShell or the Azure CLI to create a zone redundant Hyperscale database using database copy. There are three ways to register with the extension: By default, Azure VMs with SQL Server 2016 or later installed will be automatically registered with the SQL IaaS Agent extension when detected by the CEIP service. Azure SQL Managed Instance greatly simplifies the migration of existing applications to Azure, enabling you to bring migrated database applications to market in Azure quickly. After the database is added, refresh Object Explorer to confirm the status of your database as synchronized. SQL Managed Instance provides support for instance-scoped features enabling easy migration of existing applications, as well as sharing resources among databases. Azure SQL / MS SQL Server Administration Remote Long Term Responsible for maintaining existing databases with high-availability solutions, replication, backup, restore, encryption, and disaster recovery solutions. If you're using an existing load balancer, you only need one available IP address for the availability group listener. A stateless compute layer that runs the sqlservr.exe process and contains only transient and cached data, such as TempDB, model databases on the attached SSD, and plan cache, buffer pool, and columnstore pool in memory. Azure SQL is not a service or resource, but rather a family of SQL-related services. Applies to: Applies to: The Azure portal provides a single page where you can manage all of your Azure SQL resources including your SQL Server on Azure virtual machines (VMs). If the service-level agreement (SLA) for an IaaS app requires > 99% availability, you can place VMs in availability sets, availability zones, and proximity placement groups to configure high availability for the app. Tip: In Azure, it is cheaper with blob storage than using the file. Each Availability Zone has a distinct power source, network, and cooling. Confirm you have the latest version of the API to ensure support for any recent changes. Use. Navigate to your SQL virtual machines resource. There is still some minimal number of SQL Server features that are not available. Supports almost all on-premises instance-level and database-level capabilities. The database copy can be in the same or different region as the existing Hyperscale database. The decision flowchart reflects the principle that HA apps should use AZs if possible. For more information, see Quorum with SQL Server VMs. Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance feature a built-in high availability solution, that is deeply integrated with the Azure platform. This solution can be used for any industry, including the following scenarios: AZs aren't available in all Azure regions. Since you do not need to change the presentation, application, and data layers, you save time and budget on re-architecting your existing solution. 1 Answer. You can also run a stretched-cluster configuration across zones, which has higher latency and supports asynchronous replication. If you want to use a VM-based cluster arbiter, for example a file-share witness, place it in the third AZ, to ensure quorum isn't lost if any one zone fails. To install the SQL Server IaaS extension to SQL Server on Azure VMs, see the articles for Automatic installation, Single VMs, or VMs in bulk. SQL Server High Availability (HA) Availability Groups that own its own storage Failover Cluster instance (FCI) Shared Storage MSMQ HA Shared Storage Storage spaces direct BizTalk server Licensing BYOL or pay as you go BizTalk server HA Clustering for single instance hosts Sign into the Azure portal. Configuring Azure Services PaaS, IaaS and Migrated databases from on-premises to Azure. Azure constantly monitors your data for threats. Existing SQL Server VMs deployed prior to this date, or ones with SQL Server self-installed, use the sysadmin model and can enable the least privileged permissions model in the Azure portal. For more information, see. Within PaaS, you have multiple product options, and service tiers within each option. SQL Server High Availability and Disaster Recovery https: . This is in preview in the following regions: Southeast Asia, Australia East, Japan East, and UK South. The other is for the availability group listener within the same subnet as the availability group. SQL Server VMs deployed through the Azure Resource Manager. Best for new applications or existing on-premises applications that want to use the latest stable SQL Server features and that are migrated to the cloud with minimal changes. This article describes how to use the Azure portal to configure an availability group for SQL Server on Azure VMs within a single subnet. If there are any other VMs in the cluster apart from the SQL Server VMs that were removed, the other VMs won't be removed and the cluster won't be destroyed. To achieve this, we tried a lot of things: Failover cluster instances (FCIs) in lightweight mode. It has the required implementation to protect against local hardware and software failures with an SLA of 99.995%. In SQL Database, when using the Business Critical tier, zone-redundant configuration is only available when the Gen5 hardware is selected. You do not have to manage upgrades, high availability, or backups. Specify the -zone-redundant parameter to enable zone redundancy for your Hyperscale database copy. You can manually trigger a failover by calling a special API to restart a database, an elastic pool, or a managed instance. As an extra benefit, the premium availability model includes the ability to redirect read-only Azure SQL connections to one of the secondary replicas. Ensure your domain controller is running. A fully managed SQL Server database engine, based on the latest stable Enterprise Edition of SQL Server. Select OK to save your settings and add your database to the availability group. By designing your solutions to use replicated VMs in zones, you can protect your apps and data from the loss of a data center. This layer uses data availability and, Zone redundant configuration can only be specified during database creation. Log Shipping. For the latest information on the current supported service tiers, compute sizes, and storage amounts, see DTU-based purchasing model for SQL Database and vCore-based purchasing model for both SQL Database and SQL Managed Instance. Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support. Zone-redundant configuration for the General Purpose service tier is offered for both serverless and provisioned compute. When you deploy production VMs and so production services in Azure, you often want high availability. Landing zone and long-term storage use Azure Storage, which provides availability and, A stateful data storage layer with the database files (.mdf/.ndf) that are stored in Azure Storage and are updated by page servers. You can use ASs instead of AZs, but using ASs reduces availability from 99.99% to 99.95%, because ASs can't tolerate datacenter failure. This includes: Note whether or not a restart is required, and proceed with caution. To test latency between Azure regions, use. For more information, see Run an N-tier application in multiple Azure regions for high availability. As of September 2021, restarting the SQL Server service is no longer necessary when registering your SQL Server VM in full management mode. The least privileged permission model grants the minimum permissions required for each feature used by the extension that a customer enables. Use AZs if possible, because they provide datacenter fault tolerance. The HA and DR solutions you choose depend on the required SLA, latency considerations, and regional DR requirements. Select Configure listener to open the Configure availability group listener page. This process guarantees 99.99% availability, but a heavy workload may experience some performance degradation during the transition since the new sqlservr.exe process starts with cold cache. You can use the following tools to gain better insight into latency conditions for a variety of scenarios: DR considerations include availability, the ability of the app to keep running in a healthy state, and data durability, the preservation of data if a disaster happens. With SQL Database, you can choose a service tier that fits your needs from a wide range of prices starting from 5$/month for basic tier and you can create, With SQL Managed Instance, you can also bring your own license. ADR is currently available for Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and Azure Synapse Analytics. While this article uses the Azure portal to configure the availability group environment, it is also possible to do so using PowerShell or the Azure CLI, Azure Quickstart Templates, or Manually as well. Synchronous replication is possible between any Database Management System (DBMS) nodes, because of the low latency of the cross-zonal network. Unregistering your SQL Server VM from the extension will remove the SQL virtual machine resource from your subscription but will not drop the actual virtual machine. For up to date information about the regions that support zone-redundant databases, see Services support by region. Make sure you can map your application against the selected solution. Azure SQL Database The SQL Server IaaS Agent extension (SqlIaasExtension) runs on SQL Server on Windows Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) to automate management and administration tasks. Developers who are building intelligent and immersive applications can find themselves constrained by limitations that can ultimately impact their experience. You can also stop or resume the VM as needed. A failover can be initiated using PowerShell, REST API, or Azure CLI: The Failover command is not available for readable secondary replicas of Hyperscale databases. Destination server is called Subscriber. A zone-redundant Application Gateway routes traffic to VMs within the web tier. Install SQL Server with a named instance within the SQL Server VM. A resource group with a domain controller. URI . So in addition to testing how failover impacts existing database sessions, you can also verify if it changes the end-to-end performance due to changes in network latency. When none of the databases on a server are zone-redundant, or when you create an empty server, then the master database associated with the server is not zone-redundant. While cross-zone latency is still very low, if you need to ensure the lowest possible latency, keep all network communications between app tiers within a zone. The most significant difference from SQL Database and SQL Managed Instance is that SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines allows full control over the database engine. N-tier architectures are typically implemented as IaaS apps divided into logical layers and physical tiers, with a top web or presentation tier, a middle business tier, and a data tier. Deploying a SQL Server VM Azure Marketplace image through the Azure portal automatically registers the SQL Server VM with the extension in full. Similarly, data for some DMVs, for example sys.resource_stats, is also stored in the master database. There are no maintenance windows or downtimes that should require you to stop the workload while the database is upgraded or maintained. Your Synchronization health on the High Availability page of the Azure portal will show as Not healthy until you add databases to your availability group. The architecture uses resources spread across multiple zones to provide high availability to an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) web application that uses a SQL Server database. You would have to delete the VMs and recreate them from the underlying managed disks, which is an involved process. To enable the least privilege permissions model, go to your SQL virtual machines resource, choose Additional features under Settings and then check the box next to SQL IaaS extension least privilege mode: The following table defines the permissions and custom roles used by each feature of the extension: You can choose to register your SQL IaaS extension in three management modes: Lightweight mode copies extension binaries to the VM, but does not install the agent. Give your load balanced set a name, and press finish. All VMs in an AZ are in a single fault domain (FD) and update domain (UD), meaning they share a common power source and network switch, and can all be rebooted at the same time. Next, remove the cluster metadata from the SQL IaaS Agent extension: If you run into issues, you can check the deployment history, and review the common errors as well as their resolutions. High availability is a fundamental part of the SQL Database and SQL Managed Instance platform that works transparently for your database application. This should be the same account for every SQL Server VM you intend to add to the availability group. The zone-redundant version of the high availability architecture is illustrated by the following diagram: The Hyperscale service tier architecture is described in Distributed functions architecture and is only currently available for SQL Database, not SQL Managed Instance. SQL Server on Azure VM. Azure IaaS and HA Usually, an on-premises production environment has some sort of HA; probably, if you're evaluating its migration to Azure, it's reasonable you're expecting the same level of availability you had on-prem. Microsoft Azure virtual machines (VMs) with SQL Server can help lower the cost of a high availability and disaster recovery (HADR) database solution. All Azure regions that have Availability Zones support zone redundant Hyperscale database. There are two approaches to HA on the list of options at the top that do not involve creating an FCI. On-premises application can access data in Azure SQL Database. Now, it's time to introduce High Availability and costs reduction topics. In addition, Bring-Your-Own-License versions (BYOL) of the images are available. System administrator permissions are required. Azure Site Recovery lets you replicate VMs to another Azure region for regional disaster recovery and business continuity. managing a solution for high availability and disaster recovery (HADR) in Azure, for both Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) deployments. Create an Availability Group Listener In addition, you are billed for outgoing Internet traffic at regular data transfer rates. Implement a high availability and disaster recovery (HADR) solution that meets your business continuity SLAs, see the HADR options options available for SQL Server on Azure VMs. Azure high availability VMs architecture - including Taffic Manager, AD instances (on VMs). Rapid development and test scenarios when you do not want to buy on-premises non-production SQL Server hardware. This configuration utilizes Azure Availability Zones to replicate databases across multiple physical locations within an Azure region.By selecting zone-redundancy, you can make yournew and existing serverless and provisioned generalpurpose single databases and elastic pools resilient to a much larger set of failures, including catastrophic datacenter outages, without any changes of the application logic. Alternatively, you might be able to use a cloud-based witness in another region. For more information, see the Bandwidth pricing page. Your skills and experience transfer to the cloud, so you can do even more with what you already have. By selecting zone-redundancy, you can make your Hyperscale databases resilient to a much larger set of failures, including catastrophic datacenter outages, without any changes to the application logic. Because the zone-redundant configuration in the Premium or Business Critical service tiers does not create additional database redundancy, you can enable it at no extra cost. Zone-redundant configuration for the General Purpose tier has two layers: The zone-redundant version of the high availability architecture for the General Purpose service tier is illustrated by the following diagram: For General Purpose tier the zone-redundant configuration is Generally Available in the following regions: West Europe, North Europe, West US 2, France Central, East US 2 & East US. Compliance: The extension offers a simplified method to fulfill the requirement of notifying Microsoft that the Azure Hybrid Benefit has been enabled as is specified in the product terms. Lightweight mode is the default management mode when using the automatic registration feature, or when a management type is not specified during manual registration. Enabling this configuration ensures zone-level resiliency through replication across Availability Zones for all Hyperscale layers. The availability model in Hyperscale includes four layers: Compute nodes in all Hyperscale layers run on Azure Service Fabric, which controls health of each node and performs failovers to available healthy nodes as necessary. More info about Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge, VMs in Azure running SQL Server 2016 (or later) Enterprise edition, registered with the SQL IaaS Agent extension in full manageability mode, HADR settings for SQL Server on Azure VMs, Windows Server Failover Cluster with SQL Server on Azure VMs, Always On availability groups with SQL Server on Azure VMs. All recent versions and editions of SQL Server are available for installation in an IaaS virtual machine. When using SQL Database, you pay-as-you-go with options to scale up or out for greater power with no interruption. With SQL virtual machines, you have the full administrative rights over a dedicated SQL Server instance and a cloud-based VM. You can choose when to start maintenance/patching, change the recovery model to simple or bulk-logged, pause or start the service when needed, and you can fully customize the SQL Server database engine. For more options for high availability and disaster recovery, see. Specify the -ZoneRedundant parameter to enable zone redundancy for your Hyperscale database secondary. It was originally written by the following contributors. Expand Always On High Availability in Object Explorer. By default, the replication option offered by Azure Backup is the geo-redundant storage (GRS) one where the data is replicated to a secondary region but it also offers locally redundant storage (LRS) where all . Configure high availability and disaster recovery for an IaaS app. When the underlying database in Azure SQL Database is patched or fails over, the downtime is not noticeable if you employ retry logic in your app. For more information about these events and HA best practices to reduce their impact, see Understand VM reboots, maintenance vs. downtime. You can attain 99.99% SLA by creating an additional SQL virtual machine, and implementing the SQL Server Always On availability group high availability solution. Making the master database zone-redundant is an asynchronous process and will take some time to finish in the background. SQL Server VMs deployed through the classic model are not supported. With SQL Database and SQL Managed Instance, the database software is automatically configured, patched, and upgraded by Azure, which reduces your administration costs. For more information on pricing, see the following resources: For many businesses, the decision to transition to a cloud service is as much about offloading complexity of administration as it is cost. This feature is not available in SQL Managed Instance. On the 01 machine, go to the endpoints tab, and let's edit the HTTP endpoint, select the "create a load balanced set" check box, and press next. You should have at least two SAP application instances installed in two instances of Azure Virtual Machines. There is no impact to memory or CPU when using the lightweight mode, and there is no associated cost. Storage account name must be between 3 and 24 characters in length and use numbers and lower-case letters only. The standard availability model includes two layers: Whenever the database engine or the operating system is upgraded, or a failure is detected, Azure Service Fabric will move the stateless sqlservr.exe process to another stateless compute node with sufficient free capacity. SQL virtual machines are a good option for migrating on-premises SQL Server databases and applications without any database change. At least 1 high availability compute replica and the use of zone-redundant or geo-zone-redundant backup storage is required for enabling the zone redundant configuration for Hyperscale. Oracle Data Guard. You can do so by using the latest version of the Azure CLI or PowerShell. Azure Backup automatically allocates and manages backup storage using the power and scalability of Azure to deliver high availability. SQL Managed Instance supports database migration from on-premises with minimal to no database change. Limitations arising from incompatible platforms, inadequate data security, insufficient resources and price-performance barriers create complexity that can inhibit app modernization and development. Data related to some of these features, such as logins and firewall rules, is stored in the master database. The per-minute billing option allows you to use SQL Server for as long as you need without buying addition SQL Server licenses. They moved from SQL clustering to SQL Server Always On, used automation to streamline primary site migrations, and tested site server high availability to minimize Central Administration Site downtime during migration. In addition, you can use SQL Server in a virtual machine to develop and test traditional SQL Server applications. An Availability Zone is a physically separate zone, within an Azure region. The domain user account that controls SQL Server. The following figure shows four different nodes with the separated compute and storage layers. The failover is initiated by the Azure Service Fabric. Accelerated Database Recovery(ADR) is a new database engine feature that greatly improves database availability, especially in the presence of long running transactions. HADR configuration Alternatively, if you have your own data replication technology, you can use it to create a secondary in-region zone for DR.