Today’s applications are expected to be highly responsive and always online. Such circumstances excite the pressure on applications to respond in real-time to large changes in usage at peak hours, store ever-increasing volumes of data and make it available in milliseconds. Azure Database Services comes to rescue in such situations, and Azure supports many industry-standard databases and APIs. In this blog, we will overview Azure Databases, explore the Azure Databases’ monitoring side, and note the next big thing (the new releases) of Azure SQL Database Monitoring landscape.
Azure Databases
To suit software developers’ needs, Azure provides a choice of completely controlled relational, NoSQL and in-memory databases, spanning proprietary and open-source engines. Management factors like scalability, availability and security are automated, saving your time and money. You can focus on building applications while Azure Databases make your job easy by revealing the performance insights through embedded intelligence, scaling without limits, and managing security threats. Here are the Database services offered by Azure,
Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL Database is a general-purpose relational database-as-a-service (DBaaS) based on the latest stable version of Microsoft SQL Server Database Engine. SQL Database is a high-performance, reliable, and secure cloud database that you can use to build data-driven applications and websites in the programming language of your choice, without needing to manage infrastructure.
Azure Cosmos DB
Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed, multi-model database service. Azure Cosmos DB provides comprehensive service level agreements for throughput, latency, availability, and consistency guarantees. Azure Cosmos DB SQL API accounts support querying items using the Structured Query Language (SQL), one of the most familiar and popular query languages, as a JSON query language.
Azure Database for MySQL
Azure Database for MySQL is a relational database service in the cloud, and it is from MySQL Community Edition database engine, versions 5.6, 5.7, and 8.0. In Azure Database for MySQL:
- You can ensure high availability at no additional cost.
- The team can experience predictable performance and inclusive, pay-as-you-go pricing.
- Scale as needed, within seconds.
- The organization can protect sensitive data-at-rest and in-motion.
- Automatic backups.
- Enterprise-grade security and compliance.
Azure SQL Managed Instances
Azure SQL Managed Instance is a scalable cloud data service that provides the broadest SQL Server database engine compatibility with all the benefits of a fully managed platform as a service. Migrate your SQL workloads to Azure while retaining complete compatibility with SQL Server, with all the advantages of a professionally managed platform as a service.
Azure Database for PostgreSQL
Azure Database for PostgreSQL is a relational database service in the cloud. Azure Database for PostgreSQL delivers the following benefits:
- Built-in high availability compared to on-premises resources.
- Flexible and straightforward pricing.
- Scale up or down as needed, within seconds
Azure Cache for Redis
Azure Cache for Redis is a solution for improving the speed and scalability of applications in the cloud. Based on Redis software, Azure Cache for Redis offers an in-memory data store. Redis increases the reliability and scalability of an application that extensively uses back-end data stores.
Apart from these Database Services, Azure also has Database for MariaDB, SQL Server on Virtual Machines and Azure Database Migration Services.
Azure Database Monitoring
To help you troubleshoot and optimize your databases and solutions’ efficiency, Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance provide advanced monitoring and tuning capabilities backed by artificial intelligence. Azure SQL Analytics is an integrated cloud monitoring solution that monitors all your databases’ performance on a single scale and through multiple subscriptions. See the diagnostic telemetry for export for a list of logs and metrics you can export.
In the Metrics view, you can quickly monitor several resource metrics in the Azure Portal. These metrics allow you to see whether a database reaches 100 per cent of processor, memory, or IO resources. More CPU or IO resources are required for your workload if there is a high IO, high DTU or processor percentage.
Database Advisors
The Azure SQL Database includes database advisors that provide single and pooled databases with performance tuning recommendations. These guidelines are accessible both via the Azure portal and using PowerShell. You can also allow automatic tuning so that the Azure SQL Database can automatically apply these tuning recommendations.
Next Big Thing in Azure Database Monitoring
Microsoft Azure has always been scaling up its capabilities with new releases very often. Similarly, they have done few releases in the Azure Database Landscape in both monitoring and management sectors,
Azure SQL DB monitored using Azure SQL Analytics
This capability is available in preview state from 19/09/2020. Azure SQL Analytics is an advanced cloud monitoring solution that allows you to monitor all your Azure SQL databases’ performance on a single scale and through multiple subscriptions. With built-in intelligence for performance troubleshooting, Azure SQL Analytics gathers and visualizes vital performance metrics. Azure SQL Analytics does not use the agents to connect to Azure Monitor and does not allow on-premises or virtual machine-hosted SQL Server monitoring.
With Azure SQL Analytics you can generate and view,
- SQL Database Dashboard view
- SQL Managed Instance Dashboard view
- Azure SQL Database Intelligent Insights report
- Elastic Pools and Database reports
- Query reports
Users must have minimum permission for the Reader role in Azure to use Azure SQL Analytics. However, this function does not allow users to see the query’s text or perform any automated tuning behaviour. The Owner, Contributor, SQL DB Contributor, or SQL Server Contributor are more permissive roles in Azure that allow the full use of Azure SQL Analytics.
Azure Database Monitoring with Serverless360
Serverless360 is a unified platform for managing and monitoring Azure Serverless integration components. The integrated cloud application in a real-time scenario typically involves at least three or four different Azure services. You can rely on Serverless360 to manage and monitor all your distributed Azure Serverless components.
Serverless360 Monitoring
Serverless360 also supports Azure database services like SQL DB, Cosmos DB, Virtual Machines and Redis Cache. You can manage and monitor your Azure DB services under one roof.
Here are the management and monitoring capabilities available in Serverless360:
- Serverless360 extends its capability to execute SQL Queries without a need to switch to any database management tools.
- If the monitoring requirement is to get alerts when a scalar query fired on the Azure SQL Database fail to meet the expected value, then select the SQL resource >> Monitoring for system profile.
- Cosmos SQL Database can contain many containers; each container can be managed and monitored separately by associating it with Serverless360. The stored procedure present in the container will be listed; by selecting the required procedure and providing the appropriate input, the users can execute the stored procedures.
- When a Cosmos SQL Database/ Containers are associated with a Serverless360’s Business Application, it is possible to monitor it based on various metrics using the Aggregation period in Serverless360.
- Serverless360 can take care of your Azure Redis Cache with the help of aggregation period, and you can also have the analytics of the resource with the use of the dashboard.
Conclusion
In this article, we had a ride through the Azure Database Services, the monitoring part of it and the new arrival to the Azure Database Monitoring landscape. Also, we got to know how Serverless360 compliments the Azure Database Services with its management and monitoring capabilities.
