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Managed Integration

Integration is at the heart of every successful data center migration.

How do you reduce your IT expenditure and provide a cost effective integration model?
How do you facilitate real-time exchange of data and programs among enterprise-wide systems and stakeholders?

SAP

Business-critical SAP enterprise applications must run in monitored SAP environments to perform optimally. Do you have the visibility and talents to manage your SAP integration and optimization?

PeopleSoft

How do you integrate Oracle PeopleSoft and Microsoft Azure? Get the power to sync all data, connect into apps, and configure flexible workflows, without any development required.

Citrix

Virtual apps, desktops, data and networking. How do you provision and deliver workloads on Azure or deploy VDI with Citrix Cloud services on Azure? Reduce overall IT costs and increase efficiency.

SQL

Why integrate SQL on Azure? Convert CapEx into an OpEx model, boost your security advantage and high-speed data retrieval without writing or updating code. Which Azure-enabled SQL solution is right for you?

Why Organizations are Choosing to Migrate Their SQL Databases to Microsoft Azure

Every organization is in the data business. For most, this presents two challenges:

  • Where and how to store an exponentially expanding quantity of data 
  • Leveraging that data to drive business decisions and growth

It is with these two problems in mind that Microsoft has created their SQL on Azure offerings. While a SQL to Azure migration can be challenging, the benefits – as outlined below – are enough to entice many organizations to take the plunge. Organizations must decide whether a SQL Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) best meet their needs.

The Benefits of Migrating SQL to Azure

  • Getting Value from Data
  • Lower Cost
  • Superior Security
  • Improved Agility
  • High Availability, High Speed
  • Easy to Maintain
  • Simple, Cost-Effective Migration

IaaS or PaaS for SQL on Azure

Azure SQL Database: SQL Platform-as-a-Service

Azure SQL Database (the SQL PaaS option) is optimized for application development and testing. Microsoft offers two versions of Azure SQL Database, both based on the Enterprise Edition of SQL Server: logical servers, and Azure SQL Database Managed Instances.

  • The first version lets you have a logical server containing single databases and servers that can be grouped into elastic pools. This enables the sharing of resources while reducing costs. A SQL Database logical server that contains single and pooled databases provides most of the database-scoped features of SQL Server. 
  • A SQL Database Managed Instance provides shared resources for databases and more instance-scoped features. Managed Instance also supports database migration with little database change.

Both versions have features unseen in SQL Server on-premises, such as built-in intelligence and management.

SQL Server Running on VMs: SQL Infrastructure-as-a-Service
For those looking for an IaaS solution, Microsoft lets organizations install and host Windows Server or Linux VMs in the Azure Cloud. This is an excellent option for migrating on-premises SQL Server databases and applications to the cloud without any database changes. The main difference between SQL Database and SQL Server on Azure VMs is that SQL on Azure VMs allows full control over the database engine. Users can set update and patching times, stop or start the engine as needed, and fully customize the SQL Server database engine. While this control can be an advantage, it brings with it the burden of managing your own infrastructure

Which Azure-Enabled SQL Solution is Right for Your Business?
Azure SQL Database is the right choice for those looking to reduce the cost of provisioning and managing many databases. Because VMs, operating systems and database software are maintained by Azure, administrative responsibilities are significantly reduced. Upgrades and backups are also managed from Microsoft. This has the added benefit of allowing your IT team to substantially increase the number of databases they can handle. Using elastic pools, resources are shared across the databases and costs are further reduced.

In contrast, SQL Server running on Azure VMs is optimized for extending current on-premises environments into the cloud, or for migrating existing applications to Azure. This method is ideal for organizations looking for full administrative rights over a dedicated SQL Server instance. A SQL IaaS solution is highly customizable, enabling you to tailor your infrastructure to your unique performance and availability requirement.