Should We Move to Azure?

  • If you are going to Azure, drink the Kool-Aid. Run your website as a cloud service and use the Azure databases.

  • In addition to elastic scaling out, cloud hosting provides good solutions for Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning.

    Go for it.

  • Steve Jones - SSC Editor (5/23/2014)


    Eric M Russell (5/23/2014)


    Does Red Gate SQL Monitor work with SQL Azure; could we still peel back the covers and see that, if SQLServerCentral were hosted on Azure?

    Some of it does. How much certainly impacts our decision to move forward because our IT group uses Monitor for monitoring.

    Going forward, wouldn't the IT guys in the Azure data center monitor the database?

    "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

  • We're building a service business, and reliability and scalability are requirements, so we'll be deploying the production system to Azure.

    So long, and thanks for all the fish,

    Russell Shilling, MCDBA, MCSA 2K3, MCSE 2K3

  • Eric M Russell (5/23/2014)


    Steve Jones - SSC Editor (5/23/2014)


    Eric M Russell (5/23/2014)


    Does Red Gate SQL Monitor work with SQL Azure; could we still peel back the covers and see that, if SQLServerCentral were hosted on Azure?

    Some of it does. How much certainly impacts our decision to move forward because our IT group uses Monitor for monitoring.

    Going forward, wouldn't the IT guys in the Azure data center monitor the database?

    not really. The Azure staff monitors Azure itself, not individual systems. It's up to Azure customers to monitor and watch the various metrics themselves.

  • Russell Shilling (5/23/2014)


    We're building a service business, and reliability and scalability are requirements, so we'll be deploying the production system to Azure.

    Be great if you want to write a bit on how this goes, what you do, what works, what doesn't.

  • Steve Jones - SSC Editor (5/23/2014)


    chrisn-585491 (5/23/2014)


    DO IT!

    As for email, you need to tweak it anyway. I currently get two emails to the same email address, everyday. Figure this out, you might be able to reduce your emails. Also consider forcing people to renew/validate every couple of years.

    You should report this. We've gone through lots of hurdles to get email working well. Likely if you're getting two, you have two subscriptions somehow. Send a note to the webmaster and we'll track it down.

    As for jabbering, is that a good or bad term? We try to talk about relevant topics for data pros. I think the cloud is one such topic.

    I would like to express my support for the amount of coverage you give regarding this topic, because whatever reservations or drawbacks with moving to the cloud we might have or consider, theres no doubting the relevency of the topic. I also think giving the move a shot would be tremendously beneficial for us, even (heck, especially!) if you encounter some drawbacks or gotchas with the process and would probably make for some great reading to whatever degree you can post about it!

  • It would certainly be an interesting excercise, and potentially produce a case study that would help a lot of people. It would be particularly interesting to see what recovery would be like, whether you could get something as reliable in the cloud as you could get in-house - - quite a few people have sufered unaccetable down-time from cloud providers. Of course if you had any confidential/sensitive data putting it in the cloud would probably be unacceptable, but a service like SQL Server Central doesn't have that problem.

    I guess email addresses would have to be made pretty secure, as the SQLS Central user email address list would be a nice asset for spammers, that would be interesting too.

    Tom

  • It would be fascinating to follow the adventure and there will be much to learn by all concerned. But my guess is that you will end up maintaining two systems forever.

  • mosaic-287947 (5/24/2014)


    But my guess is that you will end up maintaining two systems forever.

    SNORT!!! BWAAA-HAAAA-HAAAA!!!! Too funny! I was thinking the very same thing! 😀

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Just this week I registered a domain for myself. I've not registered any domain in several years, so it was a re-learning experience. Anyway, once I registered the domain than I had to think of where to host it. I did look at Azure, but felt that it was way too expensive for an individual. However, for a site like SQL Server Central, which must have at least hundreds of thousands, if not a million users, I think Azure makes sense. I'd say go for it.

    Rod

  • Just to add some motivational fuel:

    If RedGate can't use, admin and monitor Azure, what chance do us mere mortals have?

    😛

  • At the very least you should look at what is needed to make a cloud migration successful for you.

    I was part of the team that moved my employers systems to AWS as an IaaS move in 2012. Back then AWS was the only reasonable host for an operation of our scale, but this is no longer the case. For our move we installed SQL on to AWS servers using our own licenses, but this was always regarded as a stepping stone towards DB as a Service, and we are now starting this move.

    Part of our planning covered email, as we send a few million emails each day. AWS SES looked too costly, so eventually we chose PowerMTA to do the email send, and hired PostMastery to manage the email reputation issues.

    All hosting options have costs, risks, and opportunities. Different costs, risks and opportunities apply to wholly-owned, co-lo, hybrid cloud and dedicated cloud. Doing nothing is never cost and risk free, and will limit your opportunities compared to one of the other options. Part of the job of IT is to align the costs, risks and opportunities with what will best help the business to succeed.

    Original author: https://github.com/SQL-FineBuild/Common/wiki/ 1-click install and best practice configuration of SQL Server 2019, 2017 2016, 2014, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005.

    When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor they call me a communist - Archbishop Hélder Câmara

  • I've spent 3 years dealing with AWS so I would be asking whether the tasks that go away due to the move to a cloud provider allow you to pursue activities that are more beneficial to your organisation.

    If you have traditional hardware that isn't going away and your system is one that barely represents an increment in the work to keep the other systems on that hardware operational then there is little benefit in migrating.
    EXCEPT...having cloud experience in a work capacity looks good on your CV.  The cynic in me notes that an awful lot of technology choices seem to be fuelled by the CV aspirations of the decision influencers/makers than organisational need.

    Where a move to the cloud makes sense is

    • You don't need the facility 24/7/365

    • The cost of admin on-premise exceeds the benefit of doing so

    • The facilities in the cloud offer features that are genuinely useful but would require additional purchase if attempted on-premise

    • The cloud facility frees you to focus on other value-add stuff

    • The system (while useful and valuable) is not core to the business.  It's analogous to payroll.  I'm not sure how many companies run their own payroll anymore

    • Integration with other highly desirable cloud provider facilities is straight forward.  AWS, Google and Microsoft have a lot of AI/ML/DW facilities that would be very expensive to acquire and support on-premise

    • Hardware refresh and licence upgrades are coming around.

    • Your cloud vendor offers red-hot services including security and design advice

    If a company starts shifting to the cloud there comes a tipping point beyond which the cost of paying for their own data centre just doesn't make sense.  You end up with a few systems having to bear the brunt of the costs of that on-premise data centre, at which point on-premise no-longer makes financial sense.

  • I have a hard time believing that the cloud would be cost effective for a site like SQLServerCentral.  It seems like the pricing in the cloud it still a bit expensive.  I guess that might be a good first step is to better quantify how much is running the site currently costing you?  How much more would it cost to put it in the cloud?  Then the debate might be more on if that cost difference was worth it or not?

    Ben

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