Last week in Azure SQL Database – Part 5 – Wrapup

This post contains miscellaneous information about the current/future state of Azure SQL Database (AST). You know I couldn’t write just one more blog post when I said I would in Part3, didn’t ya’? This post has some properties of a rant in some places, but I’m genuinely interested. I try not to judge technologies, just tell people how they work…in detail. This post covers:
Additional metrics in the new tiers
ASD database functionality status
Sync Services status
Scale-out status

The new tiers contain 3-4 new metrics that can be turned on and observed in the portal. Select a existing new-tier database, choose “Monitor” then at the bottom, choose “Add Metrics”. New additonal metrics are:
CPU Percentage %
Log Writes Percentage %
Physical Data Reads Percentage %

Old “Additonal Metrics” are
Blocked by Firewall Count
Throttled Connections Count
Storage Megabytes

Original Metrics are:
Deadlocks Count
Failed Connections Count
Successful Connections Count

I said 3-4 new ones because I think “Storage Megabytes” was in the old tiers as well. There may be PowerShell properties to control and monitor these too. None of the additional metrics show up in Azure PowerShell 2.3, or at least I can’t find them.

Next, about new functionality (database functionality) in ASD. It’s been a while since there’s been any new (visible) database functionality in ASD. The new tiers don’t provide any; @@version is the same as the old tiers, as is the database metadata. Sequences and SQL2012 windowing functions are still missing. Event sessions were announced with fanfare at TechEd a year or two ago, then metadata appeared, but the feature hasn’t appeared.

The last new functionality tidbit that I remember is the addition of compression (ROW and PAGE) about a month ago. I tried this and it works. However, without a sys.partitions metadata table (it’s “not found”) it’s impossible to see what existing tables/indexes have been compressed. On a whim, I looked in sys.tables….and found some metadata fields from SQL2014! (referring to in-memory OLTP). Of course, in-memory OLTP isn’t there either, but this begs the question: what version of SQL Server is this based on, anyway?

Then there’s Sync Services. It still exists, still works (or can be configured) on the new tiers, but it’s still preview…for the last approximately 2 years. What I once referred to, in one of my more rude moments, as “eternal beta”. No word on it’s GA date or it’s fate yet either. Geo-replication may provide an alternative for Premium customers, but for non-Premium and sync to on-premises/SQL Server, we’re still using either Sync Services (preview) or Export/Import.

Finally, about Federations being deprecated… The replacement for federations, according to this page: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azure/dn495641.aspx is Custom Sharding. But it’s description: “Design custom sharding solutions to maximize scalability and flexibility for resource intense workloads. These solutions use application code across multiple databases.” leaves a lot to be desired. What does the custom code (that replaces a built-in feature) do, exactly?? I’d heard there was to be “prescriptive guidance” but, so far, I see no guidance at all, except “write your own”. Maybe, some SAMPLE CODE? Especially because the placement point for Azure SQL Database is “New applications that are designed to scale-out”.

Granted federations had a lot of missing features (fan-out queries and ALTER FEDERATION MERGE are two that come to mind) and had its drawbacks, but (MHO…) you can’t replace a built-in feature with (no, yet) prescriptive guidence unless no one’s using it currently. But some folks ARE using it. I’ll need to keep updated as things develop in this area. I’m hopeful that things will develop….

Wrapup: I like the new tiers. Love the new utility features. Wonder about the database features going forward. But these were not MEANT to be announced last week. There were enough announcements to get used to. 😉

Cheers, @bobbeauch

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