1. Comparing Cloud Database Offerings Ike Ellis ike@ellisteam.net
Amazon RDS vs. SQL Azure
Comparing Cloud Database Offerings
Ike Ellis

2. Agenda Similarities Architectural Differences Pricing Backup & Restore
Scaling
Database Size
Feature Set
Tooling
Disaster Recovery
Future Roadmap

3. Similarities Your App Change Connection String Web Portal
ConnectionString change just works fine
Auto-Provisioning(instant)
Easy Web Tools for database/server creation
Easy Billing
Change Connection String

4. Architecture

5. SQL Azure Architecture SQL Server 2008/Denali*

6. Amazon RDS Architecture
Spins up a dedicated Virtual Machine
Less Cloudy
Built on MySQL/Oracle

7. WINNER: Azure
More cloud for the cloud
Elastic
Service-Oriented

8. Pricing

9. Main SQL Azure Pricing

10. Main Amazon RDS Pricing - MySQL

11. Amazon RDS Pricing - Oracle

12. Azure you pay for space
Amazon you pay for compute

14. Both – Additional Charges
SQL Azure
Bandwidth – Ingress/Egress
Amazon
Storage

15. Amazon Create Database Screen

16. Windows Azure Create Database Screen

17. WINNER: Both Draw Amazon RDS Expensive – but more options for scaling
SQL Azure
Cheaper, but no scaling
Both need cheaper offerings for large implementations
Affordable for smaller databases/computes

18. Amazon Backup Screen #1

19. Amazon Backup/Restore #2

20. SQL Azure Backup/Restore – Database Copy
Database Copy in Production
Create database test1
As copy of test
Select * from sys.databases
select * from sys.dm_database_copies

21. …but hope for the future

23. WINNER: Amazon RDS
But Azure has a bright future.

24. Two Types of Scaling

27. Amazon RDS Scale Up
Amazon RDS currently supports six DB Instance Classes:
Small DB Instance: 1.7 GB memory, 1 ECU (1 virtual core with 1 ECU), 64-bit platform, Moderate I/O Capacity
Large DB Instance: 7.5 GB memory, 4 ECUs (2 virtual cores with 2 ECUs each), 64-bit platform, High I/O Capacity
Extra Large DB Instance: 15 GB of memory, 8 ECUs (4 virtual cores with 2 ECUs each), 64-bit platform, High I/O Capacity (MySQL DB Engine Only)
High-Memory Extra Large Instance 17.1 GB memory, 6.5 ECU (2 virtual cores with 3.25 ECUs each), 64-bit platform, High I/O Capacity
High-Memory Double Extra Large DB Instance: 34 GB of memory, 13 ECUs (4 virtual cores with 3,25 ECUs each), 64-bit platform, High I/O Capacity
High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large DB Instance: 68 GB of memory, 26 ECUs (8 virtual cores with 3.25 ECUs each), 64-bit platform, High I/O Capacity

28. SQL Azure Scale Up
Hope for the future – Dedicated Resources

29. Amazon RDS & SQL Azure Scale Out
Home grow both solutions
Custom Sharding
EnzoSharding
Hope for Future with SQL Azure
Federations

30. WINNER: Draw
SQL Azure wins Scale Out
Amazon RDS wins Scale Up

31. Database Size SQL Azure Amazon RDS
Future: SQL Azure promises to bump it up.

32. Winner: Amazon RDS
You could argue that it’s harder for Azure to bump up database size since it’s more cloudy.

33. General Feature Set Amazon RDS = Full MySQL/Oracle instance
SQL Azure = Subset of SQL Server Features
Kinda disappointing
Whole bunch of cloudy features
Data Sync
Marketplace
Odata
Silverlight Management Tool

34. Winner: SQL Azure

35. Tooling

36. Amazon RDS Tooling
MySQL WorkBench
All the Oracle Tools

37. SQL Azure Tooling SQL Server Management Studio (No Designers)
SSIS, BCP, SQLCMD, etc
Database Manager (Project Houston – Silverlight)

38. Tooling Winner: SQL Azure (with caveat)
MySQL guys will like the same tooling
SQL Azure has a ton of tools plus opens up their platform to non-SQL developers with the Silverlight tool

39. Disaster Recovery

40. Amazon RDS Disaster Recovery
Double the price.

41. SQL Azure Disaster Recovery
Future Roadmap – Different Data Centers

42. Disaster Recovery Winner: SQL Azure
SQL Azure’s DR is all-inclusive

43. SQL Azure Future Roadmap
Very transparent
30 sessions on SQL Azure at TechEd this year, many of them publicly downloadable
SQL Azure Team Blog is very vocal and open
SQL Azure Reporting Services
SQL Azure Federations
Backup/Restore
Data Sync
CLR/XML Indexes/Designers/New Tooling/New Migration

44. Amazon RDS Future Roadmap

45. Roadmap Winner: SQL Azure
Roadmap is clear and the future looks bright

46. Overall Winner: Draw - Ugh
SQL Azure is more cloudy
Amazon is more like MySQL/Oracle hosting

48. Contact Ike
Blog: blog.ellisteam.net
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