Relational Database Management in Azure

Azure SQL Server is a cloud-based relational database management system (RDBMS) offered by Microsoft. It is a fully managed service designed to support modern applications and workloads. Here, will provide an overview of Azure SQL Server and Databases, including their features, benefits, and how to set up and manage them on the Azure platform.

Azure SQL Server and Databases

Azure SQL Server provides a platform to store, manage, and analyze relational data. It supports a variety of database workloads, including transactional, analytical, and mixed workloads, and is designed to handle high volumes of scaling data. Additionally, it offers features such as automatic patching, backups, and high availability to ensure that data is always accessible and secure.

In addition to servers, Azure also offers direct access to the creation of databases through its Azure Databases service. These are a collection of fully managed database services offered by Microsoft. They provide a variety of database engines to support different data types and workloads and offer managed instances of popular databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, and MongoDB. Azure Databases also offers a fully managed NoSQL database service, Azure Cosmos DB, which is designed to handle globally distributed applications and workloads.

Create an Azure SQL Database

Let’s use Azure CLI to create an SQL Server and a Database to query. We’ll use Azure’s sample template schema, AdventureWorks.

1. Create a resource group: An engineering best practice to follow throughout the creation of Azure services and resources is to create a new resource group for every project. This way, once the project is complete, the resource group can be deleted. All services and costs for resources are connected to a resource group; therefore, deleting a resource group helps manage costs most efficiently for resources that are no longer being used. Use the command below to create a new resource group (e.g., az-sql-rg).