Stretch Database & Managed Backups Cloud Services for your SQL Servers Andrew Loree

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Goals Learn about Stretch Database & Managed Backups Two Azure service supported features for on-premises or IaaS 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

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

Help!!! Patience! Azure and SSMS have fast paced release cycles Where to look Azure Documentation https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ Slack SQL Community https://sqlcommunity.slack.com/ Twitter #sqlhelp Search Connect https://connect.microsoft.com/

Azure Storage Terminology Azure Storage Account – single point of billing and rollup of invoicing for all associated storage containers Two “kinds” of accounts: Classic - 2014 Resource Manager - 2016 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

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

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

Managed Backups Demo!

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

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?

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 You have an even easier option 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)

Managed Backups Automated Backups v2 Azure VM SQL Server 2016 Utilizes Managed Backups in the background 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) https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/sql/virtual-machines-windows-sql-automated-backup-v2

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

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

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 http://dtucalculator.azurewebsites.net/ Abstract unit

Azure SQL DB/Server Database Transfer Unit Basic is not supported/available for use with stretch database Updated 7/5/2016 - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/sql-database-service-tiers/

But wait… Azure SQL Stretch Database != Azure SQL Database With 2016 RTM release, new Azure resource type: SQL Stretch Database (really SQL Data Warehouse) Database Stretch Units (DSU) Roughly like DTU, but there is no tier levels Storage and snapshot pricing separate Outbound data transfer

Azure SQL Stretch Database Pricing Outbound data transfer rate applies Data storage $0.16/GB/month These are your maximums amounts based upon constant DSU level/usage Updated 10Mar2017 - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/sql-server-stretch-database/

Stretch Database Demo

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 (stretched) side Order_Details as child reference is fine, Orders, nope https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt605114.aspx Updated 6/14/2016 - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt605114.aspx

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 https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt605114.aspx Updated 6/14/2016 - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt605114.aspx

Stretch Database Restore Batches of migrated rows stored in staged local table for 8 hours Restoring local database and stretch database must be within this window Reconciliation occurs automatically https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt605114.aspx

Stretch Database Use-Cases Offloading log or event type data from more expensive storage Leverage elastic query on the Azure-side for multiple stretched databases Long-term compliance retention scenarios TDE is supported on the Azure Stretch Database Others?

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