Today, Saturday, I was allowed to give another lecture, this time, it was halfway around the world in the wonderfully warm and relaxed South Florida, to the data geeks community. This is the eleventh year that they are organizing their “SQL Saturday,” on which there are usually ~ 700 participants on-site who deal with the Microsoft Data Platform topics and learn about various subjects in their free time. This year all Data Platform speakers around the world were called upon to submit their sessions. Happily, 92 speakers responded to this call and did not make it easy for the organizers to select the most interesting and exciting presentations from the 180 proposed topics. I submitted several sessions on Azure SQL Databases and Azure Arc Data Services.
For me, it was the first time that I was there in Florida, and hopefully not the last time, because it was a great pleasure for me to be able to do my part. My session on Saturday was about the differences between the skills of a database administrator who “only” operates on-premise SQL servers and a DBA who is only / also in the cloud. In this session, I showed which services are available in the Azure Cloud for the SQL Server DBA and how his work environment and activities change accordingly, which topics he will have to take care of in the future and prepare for it them.
Change your skills – from an onpremise DBA to a cloud DBA
After my brief introduction to who I am and what I do, I first gave a quick overview of Microsoft’s different services in Azure for operating SQL Server databases and how these services differ from on-premise. For the easiest way of migrating from on-prem to Azure, the regular Azure virtual machine is suitable for the 1: 1 migration of a SQL server. If you only need a single database, you would undoubtedly choose the Azure SQL Single Database, but if it should be a complete SQL Server instance (but without VM around it), select the Azure SQL Managed Instance.
But since this is not all and you have to make compromises from time to time, or there are special requirements, there are also “gray areas” or unique solutions such as Azure SQL Hyperscale. I discussed the differences in my presentation before going into the local SQL Server environment differences. So what the future SQL Server DBA should also be able to do, and what topics it should deal with in the future.
Now that everyone knew which services they can / must look after later, I could also go into the differences between on-premise and Azure and which add focal points need to be considered. In any case, the difference or the differences in the backup procedure had to be mentioned here. Here you may not have to worry about it at all, or what depends on the selected service. The Azure SQL DB, for example, also offers the option of supporting index optimization of indexes. Database monitoring is also changing, as Azure collects a lot of data and makes it available to the portal. And the database administrator has to face significant changes in terms of availability in the network and security. There is a lot to consider and configure here, depending on the company’s requirements or the application.
My presentation
Last but not least, I went into the learning opportunities that Microsoft makes available free of charge to be able to adjust to these new challenges or be able to prepare, which learning modules, learning paths, labs, or workshops are available. I would like to provide the individual links accordingly and my slides for this lecture in the following list.
Learn and train around Azure SQL
- Microsoft Learn: Azure SQL fundamentals learning path aka.ms/azuresqlfundamentals
- Select the Azure SQL Workshop von Anna Hoffmann, Bob Ward und Buck Woody sowie dem SQL Tiger Team aka.ms/sqlworkshops
- How to choose your Azure SQL service (Advisor-Tool) aka.ms/chooseazuresql
- Azure SQL documentation aka.ms/azuresqldocs
- More videos from our team aka.ms/dataexposed
I want to thank all participants and the organizers for this successful and exciting event and, of course, their trust!
Björn continues to work from Mexico as a Senior Consultant – Microsoft Data Platform and Cloud for Kramer&Crew in Cologne. He also remains loyal to the community from his new home, he is involved in Data Saturdays or in various forums. Besides the topics around SQL Server, Powershell and Azure SQL, he is interested in science fiction, baking 😉 and cycling.
