1. Stretch Database & Managed Backups
Cloud Services for your SQL Servers
Andrew Loree – Solution Architect
Northwest Arkansas SQL Server Users Group
November 9th, 2016

2. Goals Learn about Stretch Database & Managed Backups
Two Azure service supported features for on-premises SQL Servers
Understand related Azure services, how to setup and capacity/cost
Demo configuration and examples of using feature
Cover practical use-cases that make sense today and limitations for future versions to possibly resolve

3. Got a question? Andrew Loree
andyloree.com @LowOnDiskSpace

4. Agenda Managed Backups Stretch Database Azure Storage
Overview & Benefits
Demo
Use-cases & Limitations
Stretch Database
Azure SQL Server & Database

5. Help!!! Patience! Azure and SSMS have fast paced release cycles
Fast releases == unclear & out-of-date documentation
Where to look
Slack SQL Community
Twitter
#sqlhelp
Search Connect
These slides are July 2016

6. Azure Storage Terminology
Azure Storage Account – single point of billing and rollup of invoicing for all associated storage containers
Two “kinds” of accounts:
Classic
Resource Manager
Azure Storage Container – security and access control point, within an associated storage account
Shared Access Signature – delegated access (key) for an application to have limited access to a container (like a SQL Server credential)
Resource Groups – grouping of associated services (not just storage accounts or SQL Databases)
Classic vs resource manager is for “deployment” of solutions
Storage container – think of a root “share” folder
Shared Access Signature, used with 2016, is a more delegated way to allow access to Azure storage – think delegated or app key

7. Managed Backups Overview & Benefits
Manages and automates SQL Server backups to Azure Blob Storage
Why? Simplified backup process, so one less thing to manage & maintain When? Fixed or custom schedules, transaction log size awareness How? Database or instance-wide configuration, just set a retention duration Where? SQL Server 2014+, standard or enterprise Edition, on-premises or IaaS
What? Any recovery model, Availability Group-aware, encryption of
backup
You can opt-in or opt-out models

8. Managed Backups Requirements Azure Storage Account
SQL Server Agent required & must be running - Poor SQL Express
Implementation Details
New schema(s) in msdb – managed_backup, smart_admin
Everything is an internal job – Not visible thru SQL Agent jobs

9. Managed Backups
Demo!

10. Managed Backups Email Notifications
Frequency of health check is controlled via SQL Agent Job, default is every 15 minutes

11. Managed Backups Limitations
1 to 12 TB size backup size - based upon Storage Account
Maximum 30 days retention, no separate log retention
No differentials or complex backup strategies
After database drop/deletion, backups retained according to the retention period
Ad-hoc backups and any other tooling MUST use COPY_ONLY option – don’t break the log chain
No option to keep local copy – longer recovery time
No differentials or complex backup strategies – e.g. Filegroup level and backup configurations for very large databases, this isn’t going to be extensible enough
If you need long-term retention after deletion, or even desire longer retention/copies to be retained than current configuration limits, you have to copy the backup elsewhere
If you break the log chain, you have broken the ability to recover
Recovery time objectives (RTO) will be impacted due to the bandwidth of network versus almost any disk subsystem
What about the most common cause for needing a recovery, user-error?

12. Managed Backups Use-Cases Limited infrastructure locations
Remote offices and closet data centers
No offsite solution for disaster recovery
Azure hosted virtual machines running SQL Server
IaaS database migrations
Others?
Limited infrastructure locations
Backup storage options are limited to direct attached, USB drives, or worse…manually swapping tapes
Hand-in-hand with storage limitations, if you need offsite backup storage, this fits to the tee
Network limitations: perhaps you have limited connectivity to locations (e.g. point-to-point VPN), but remote locations have separate Internet connectivity/routing
Divide and conquer your bandwidth problems
Azure hosted virtual machines running SQL Server
You already have an Azure blob storage, setup managed backups, and “Opt-out” for more complex backup configurations
IaaS database migration methods
Planning migration to Azure hosted services, might as well leverage the backup blob storage now
Simplified file transfer problems (e.g. ftp, CIFS/SMB)

13. Azure SQL DB/Server Terminology
Database Transaction Unit (DTU) – performance scaling unit
Azure SQL Database Tiers – Service-level groupings, with multiple performance levels within each increasing in DTU’s
Basic – think SQL Express
Standard – Go-to option for most cloud applications
Premium – High transactional volume databases
Azure SQL Server – Hosts one or more Azure SQL Database

14. Azure SQL DB/Server Database Transaction Unit (DTU)
Blended measure of CPU, memory, reads/writes
Different “tiers” and levels within
DTU “Calculator” using perf counter data
Abstract unit

15. Azure SQL DB/Server Database Transfer Unit
Basic is not supported/available for use with stretch database
Updated 7/5/

16. But wait… Azure SQL Stretch Database != Azure SQL Database
With RTM release, new resource type:
SQL Stretch Database
Database Stretch Units (DSU)
Roughly like DTU, but there is no tier levels
Storage and snapshot pricing separate

17. Azure SQL Stretch Database
Pricing
These are your maximums amounts based upon constant DSU level/usage
Updated 9/30/

18. Stretch Database Overview & Benefits Lower cost “cold” storage
Transparent to queries/applications*
Streamlines on-premises data maintenance
Faster backups
Divide and conquer indexes
* Assumes your tables are candidates for the limitations imposed

19. Stretch Database
Demo

20. Stretch Database Gotchas! – August 2016 – SQL 2016 CU1 + SSMS July
If you get the error: “The subscription is not registered to use namespace 'Microsoft.Sql‘” from the Wizard, run Azure PowerShell commandlet: Register-AzureRmResourceProvider -ProviderNamespace Microsoft.Sql

21. Orders -> Order_Detail
Stretch Database
Limitations
You cannot UPDATE or DELETE rows already migrated*
Default and check constraints
Blob data types – text, ntext, image, xml,…
Foreign key constraints as the parent
Orders -> Order_Detail
Full text or indexed views
* Only on Azure side
Order_Details as child reference is fine, Orders, nope
Updated 6/14/

22. Stretch Database Limitations – part 2 Unique constraints not enforced
Cannot INSERT rows in Azure-side
No indexed views or filtered indexes
No memory optimized and replicated tables
No CDC or Change Tracking
Updated 6/14/

23. Stretch Database Use-Cases
Offloading log or event type data from more expensive storage
Long-term compliance retention scenarios
TDE is supported on the Azure Stretch Database
Others?

24. Got a question? Andrew Loree
andyloree.com @LowOnDiskSpace