Microsoft Azure SQL Database (formerly known as SQL Azure, SQL Server Data Services, SQL Services, and Windows Azure SQL Database) is a managed cloud database (PaaS) cloud-based Microsoft SQL Servers, provided as part of Microsoft Azure services. The service handles database management functions for cloud based Microsoft SQL Servers including upgrading, patching, backups, and monitoring without user involvement.

Overview

Azure SQL Database supports multi-modal storage of structured, semi-structured, and non-relational data. Azure SQL Database includes built-in intelligence that learns app patterns and adapts them to maximize performance, reliability, and data protection. Key capabilities include:

Popular use cases

Design

Azure SQL Database is built on the foundation of the SQL server database and therefore, kept in sync with the latest version of it by using the common code base. Since the cloud version of the database technology strives to decouple it from the underlying computing infrastructure, it doesn't support some of the context specific T-SQL features available in the traditional SQL server. However, the rest of the features are the same with incompatibilities spelled out by Microsoft. Azure SQL Database is also similar to Microsoft's SQL Managed instance offering, with some differences.

Timeline

Deployment Models

Azure SQL Database is offered in two deployment models, as a Standalone database or an Elastic database pool (with shared storage and compute resources).