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March 7, 2018

Microsoft Announces Updates for Migrating SQL Servers and Open Source Applications to Azure

March 7, 2018 — Microsoft has announced investments that dramatically expand the choice and ROI of moving your SQL Server and open source applications to Azure. SQL Server customers can now try the preview for SQL Database Managed InstanceAzure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server license benefit and Azure Database Migration Service preview for Managed Instance. Additionally, they announced the preview for Apache Tomcat support in Azure App Service and the general availability of Azure Database for MySQL and PostgreSQL in the coming weeks, making even easier to bring your open source powered applications to Azure.

Migrate SQL Server Workloads

Microsoft is making it seamless to move any SQL Server application to Azure without application changes with the new deployment option in Azure SQL Database, Managed Instance. Managed Instance offers full engine compatibility with existing SQL Server deployments including capabilities like SQLAgent, DBMail, and Change Data Capture, to name a few, and built-on the highly productive SQL Database service. Customers who participated in the limited preview are excited by the differentiated value Azure SQL Database delivers versus other options available in the market; including a fully managed service, built-in HA, and semi-autonomous database functionality including performance monitoring and tuning and Threat Detection which serves as an alarm system for your databases.

With the launch of SQL Database Managed Instance, they are also expanding the Azure Hybrid Benefit program to include support for SQL Server. You can now move your on-premises SQL Server licenses with active Software Assurance to Managed Instance and soon your SQL Server Integration Services licenses to Azure Data Factory for discounted pricing.

Managed Instance preview customers like Pivot Technology Solutions are utilizing the combination of the fully managed database service with licensing discounts. “SQL Managed Instance is that happy medium we were looking for. We needed the power and compatibility of SQL Server, but without the management overhead and cost that comes with running VMs 24×7, states Robert Shurbet, Senior Software Development Professional, Pivot Technology Solutions. “Not only will we get that power and ease of management, we’ll also be able to use the Azure Hybrid benefit, which allows us to use our existing SQL Server licensing through Software Assurance. Developing, deploying and managing our application is getting a whole lot easier and cheaper with Azure and SQL Managed Instance.”

Finally, Microsoft has expanded Azure Database Migration Service to support SQL Database Managed Instance. The Azure Database Migration Service is designed as a seamless, end-to-end solution for moving your on-premises SQL Server to Azure SQL Database as the beginning of a full roadmap of database support. The complete service roadmap will support database migrations across a variety of database sources and destinations—including upcoming support for MySQL and PostgreSQL databases to Azure Database for MySQL and Azure Database for PostgreSQL.

Migrate open source workloads

Today, Microsoft introduced a preview of built-in support for Apache Tomcat and OpenJDK 8 from Azure App Service, making it easy for Java developers to deploy web applications and APIs to Azure’s market leading PaaS. Supply your .jar or .war file to App Service and Microsoft will handle the capacity provisioning, server maintenance and load balancing. If you have other preferred images such as Jetty and different versions of JRE, you can also build your own Docker image and deploy it to App Service by pointing to your container registry.  Once your Java application is deployed, you can then extend it with the Azure SDK for Java to work with various Azure services such as Storage, Azure Database for MySQL, and Azure Database for PostgreSQL.

Microsoft has also released Azure database services for MySQL and PostgreSQL into general availability in the coming weeks. These preview services have enjoyed tremendous growth since launching into preview last year, proving that developers want database choice delivered on a simple, fully managed service platform that removes the complexities around data availability, protection, and scale. Azure database services for MySQL and PostgreSQL offer the community versions to ensure simplest migration and fastest path to development with these services on Azure. Open source supported services on Azure make it extremely easy for companies like GeekWire to move their workloads to the cloud without disruption to their technology stack and developer culture.

According to Kevin Lisota, GeekWire developer, “the [GeekWire] website is our lifeblood. Reliability of the site if critical. It’s not unusual for the site to experience a 5x, 10x increase in traffic. We migrated the site to Azure and we host the site on a variety of different Azure services to support those really unpredictable traffic spikes. GeekWire runs on WordPress, running Nginx and PHP…the key decision-maker [to migrate to Azure] was when Microsoft launched Azure Database for MySQL so we could also run the database layer together with the whole stack.”


Source: Microsoft

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