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

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

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

Architecture

SQL Azure Architecture SQL Server 2008/Denali*

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

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

Pricing

Main SQL Azure Pricing

Main Amazon RDS Pricing - MySQL

Amazon RDS Pricing - Oracle

Azure you pay for space Amazon you pay for compute

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

Amazon Create Database Screen

Windows Azure Create Database Screen

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

Amazon Backup Screen #1

Amazon Backup/Restore #2

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

…but hope for the future

WINNER: Amazon RDS But Azure has a bright future.

Two Types of Scaling

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

SQL Azure Scale Up Hope for the future – Dedicated Resources

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

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

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

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

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

Winner: SQL Azure

Tooling

Amazon RDS Tooling MySQL WorkBench All the Oracle Tools

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

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

Disaster Recovery

Amazon RDS Disaster Recovery Double the price.

SQL Azure Disaster Recovery Future Roadmap – Different Data Centers

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

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

Amazon RDS Future Roadmap

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

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

Contact Ike Email: ike@ellisteam.net Twitter: @ike_ellis Blog: blog.ellisteam.net Website: http://www.ellisteam.net Phone: 619.922.9801 User Group: http://www.sdtig.com