When interacting with large volumes of data, Azure SQL comes into the picture. SQL Azure is a cloud database service owned by Microsoft, which is based on SQL Server database technology.
As it is built on Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud computing platform, SQL Azure enables companies to store required data in the cloud, and measure the database size incorporating required changes as per business needs. All the data hosting is done in Microsoft data centers, which also includes the managing of the data.
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The main points covered in this article are,
- Azure SQL intelligence features.
- How Azure SQL Intelligences helps DBAs
- How Azure SQL Intelligences helps developers
Azure SQL intelligence mainly focuses on three features
- Intelligent Insights
- Automatic Tuning
- Service Tier Advisor
Intelligent Insights
For disruptive events, query operations are monitored by Azure SQL through Intelligent Insights process. Suggestions on how to correct the problem with the detailed report are provided when a query demonstrates regression.
Automatic Tuning
Automatic Tuning allows Azure SQL to monitor database performance. Automatic Tuning creates missing indexes or drops unused and duplicate indexes in order to improve the performance.
Service Tier Advisor
Service Tier Advisor is an administrative tool which provides a detailed dashboard. The workloads and suggestions on optimizing the pricing tiers,etc are provided in the dashboard.
How Azure SQL Intelligences helps DBAs
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Image source: Microsoft
Azure SQL mainly has the following features that help DBAs,
- Firewall
This feature is a way for DBAs to control the databases or logical Azure SQL Server. With firewalls the access to databases to clients, based on IP addresses is provided, securing the unauthorized accessing, nobody outside of Azure can access any database on that server.
- Secure connection
Based on the TDS protocol over TLS (Transport Layer Security), Azure SQL Database emphasizes on secure communication from the clients. An encrypted connection and do NOT trust server-side certificate is a must in order to have a completely secured protection.
- Auditing
Auditing gives a detailed analysis that keeps track of the database events in log files. Insert, update, and delete are the common events included in the tables. The audit logs can be stored in Azure table storage, facilitating the building of reports based on them.
- Data masking
Data masking is a security feature (policy-based). Data masking screen the users based on the access permits. It limits exposure to sensitive data information like credit card numbers, security pin numbers, etc. to unauthorized users.
- Row-level security (RLS)
The feature is the multi-tenant applications sharing data within the same database in one table. RLS centralizes the isolation logic within the database, then simplifies the design of the application and reduces the risk of error.
- Azure SQL creates Database
Delivers predictable performance at multiple service levels with dynamic reports and mashups and gain insights from data visualizations.
How Azure SQL Intelligences helps developers
The capabilities of SQL that provide dynamic scalability with nil downtime, nearly no administration, built-in intelligent optimization, and advanced security options. These features allow the developers to focus on rapid app development and accelerating the productive hours rather than allocating time and resources in managing virtual machines and infrastructure.
- Developers can work in preferred development environment
Azure SQL provides the ideal foundation for the developers to work on. SQL Database allows the developers to build great apps,easy-to-use tools such as Visual Studio and SQL Server Management Studio that exist already enable DevOps by working with SQL Server containers and deploying in a SQL Database. Building applications with Python, Java, Node.js, PHP, Ruby and .NET on all the operating systems(Mac, Linux, and Windows platforms) can be done seamlessly, keeping the speed and efficiency required for the business intact.
- Developers can utilize the built-in intelligence to protect and optimize the database.
Built-in intelligence present in Azure SQL Database uses the intelligence by learning the unique database patterns. It then automatically tunes the database for improved performance and protection. Around-the-clock the database is monitored for threat detection and for potential malicious activities, in order to intervene right away.
- Optimizes performance of the workloads
Minimal downtime becomes a must, especially when the demand for your app grows. The in-memory OLTP of SQL Database improves throughput and latency of the workloads. This, in turn, delivers faster business insights.
- Building multi-tenant apps with customer isolation and efficiency
The customer performance, efficiencies and security are the major concerns developers working on software as a service (SaaS) app. Azure SQL Database helps the developers maximize the resource utilization, increase productivity and manage thousands of databases as one.
- Helps protect and secure app data
SQL Database helps the developers by building security-enhanced apps by providing advanced built-in protection and security features in the cloud. This not only accelerates recovery from failures but gets active-geo replication.
Summary
We have now seen what makes Azure SQL intelligence most appropriate for DBAs and developers. Briefly, Azure SQL Intelligence has
- Automatic backups
Azure SQL Database has the capability of automatically backing up the differential, and transaction log.
- Point-in-time restores
Azure SQL Database has an additional feature of recovering the data at any point in time within the automatic backup retention period.
- Failover groups
Azure SQL Database allows the developer working on it to enable high availability, transparent geo-replication and load balancing at the global scale. Failover groups and active geo-replication enable no administration to keep the complex monitoring, routing etc intact in the process of creating the globally distributed SaaS applications.