We're in the process of a server migration from an on-prem server (Win2008R2) to Azure PaaS.
To move the DBs, we used the Microsoft Data Migration Assistant (DMA) tool, which worked great and we can connect to the migrated Azure DB via SQL Server Management Studio.
Considering:
Made quite a few changes to the migrated Azure DB (tables, stored procedures, indexes) to work with the apps in Azure
Combined multiple on-prem DBs into one DB in Azure via DMA to save costs
On-prem DB is continually being modified by insert/update operations (multiple tables) during the migration process
Question: what is the best and fastest way to migrate data (all vs missing/updated) considering the above?
I would recommend you to migrate first only the schema of your on-premises databases to Azure SQL Databases and then let Azure SQL Data Sync to migrate the data to Azure and keep it updated on Azure SQL Database.
My suggestion to start with an empty schema on the Azure SQL Database side is because when SQL data Sync finds data on-premises and on Azure it start comparing both databases and that consumes a lot of resources.
On the initial sync SQL Data Sync may consume a lot of resources on the on-premises database server even when having an empty schema on the Azure side, for that you can use SQL Server Resource Governor to cap the CPU used by the data sync sessions in your on premises SQL Server, and this way avoid big performance impact possibly affecting database users.
When you are ready, you can switch your users (gradually or not if SQL Data Sync is on bi-directional mode) to Azure. Once your users have been migrated, you can then remove the member database (the on-premises database) from the SQL Data Sync configuration and stop SQL Data Sync operation.
I disagree with all the answers here.
If you are running on Win2008R2 there is a high chance that you are on an old SQL Server (2008? 2012?) which are both deprecated and unsuitable for Azure SQL Database. And probably the application is also old and not suitable for the Cloud in general. I suggest you a good testing phase.
Here my to do list:
Upgrade SQL Server to SQL Server 2016 on-prem and test if all your queries are still running correctly
Test how ready is your SQL Server to go to Azure SQL Database through Microsoft Data Migration Assistant (DMA) tool or the new Azure SQL Migration extension for Azure Data Studio (came out his month).
Don even think for a second that merging databases will reduce your overall costs. Decide if going multi-tenant or single-tanant not because of the price of the database.
Plan for hours of downtime based on the size of the migration. Don't migrate while your database is modified. Expect downtime. The best way is to take a backup of the day before and then resume the logs.
and test like crazy. This is not gonna be easy because the app is old.
Good luck.
Visual Studio also has a great tool for comparing both schema and data between two databases on different servers.
It can then update the target database with any changes after which you can switch over to use the Azure DB.
This method would require downtime of around 5-30 minutes depending on amount of data, but that might be acceptible depending on your requirements.
Related
Our current web application uses Azure SQL Database. We need to create a scheduled process for importing/exporting data from a SQL database in Azure Virtual Machine to Azure SQl database. And also provide ability to trigger manually.
Currently we have manual scripts with Linked server which needs to be run on both servers.
What are the best options available for clean import/Export data automation (scheduled or manual)? for e.g. Secure Connection between servers, Tools or Applications (other than SSIS)
Could someone please provide guidance.
Thank you,
Vamshi
You can use SQL Data Sync tool to sync data between an Azure SQL Server VM and an Azure SQL database. The sync can be done manually or scheduled with a frequency of days, hours, minutes and seconds.
Of course, you can also use SSIS for that purpose. But you may see intermittent connection failures that can substantially impact data loads.
You can use Azure Data Factory to connect to Azure SQL VM and Azure SQL Database and using the copy data tool export/import data from one to the other, and vice versa.
Due to reasons (I've been told it's a networking issue with MIs; regardless, we can't fix it, we're waiting on a solution from MS that may or may not come out this year), we cannot talk from on-prem to managed instances. However, we can reach Azure SQL Databases.
We would like to replicate lookup data from on-prem to Azure Managed Instances (MIs) as well as ASDs. Is there any way to use the ASD as a "jump" box for replication, maybe by putting the Distributor on an MI that can talk to the ASD?
Looked at Azure Data Sync, but the 5-minute-minimum makes it a no-go.
Otherwise, our current fallback is to run an Azure VM/AKS instance, replicate to it, then from there to the ASDs/MIs. But man, I'd rather not have to do that.
Any suggestions appreciated.
One Way Transactional replication using SQL Data Sync for Azure.
If they wish to maintain the replication running after the migration to Managed Instances, transactional replication will be the best option at this time. Replication to Azure SQL Database
Or using ETL via Azure DataFactory
Transfer data from a SQL Server database to an Azure SQL Database using Azure Blob Storage and the Azure Data Factory (ADF): this is a supported legacy technique that benefits from a replicated staging copy.
ADF pipeline consisting of two data migration processes. They work together to transfer data between a SQL Server database and an Azure SQL Database on a regular basis. The two actions are as follows:
Data should be copied from a SQL Server database to an Azure Blob Storage account
1.I am new in azure, I want to know can we have same replication mechanism provided by on premise sql on azure sql db?
2 .Issue we are facing is, few of the tables are growing fast, daily insert around 10k records, so we are planning to keep only few months say 6 data on main DB and copy all data to other DB using replication (not sure if feasible).
We need to read data from backup as well in application for some reports.
Please suggest on this if replication will work or any other solution.
Geo-replication uses a version of AlwaysOn with async replicas under the hood. It is very similar to a distributed Availability Group in SQL 2016, but you cannot control it, you can only turn it on or off.
Replication will work for that, but it would replicate all the data in the DB, not just the tables you want.
Link to Azure Documentation: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/sql-database-geo-replication-overview/
The use case is Distributed deployment of Web Application on Azure using PaaS. I read the Azure documentation on SQL Azure database geo-replication, and it seems none of the services tiers best fit this need. The other option is SQL Sync, which is in preview and cannot be used in production.It seems Microsoft Azure does not have any way for a redundant database centric application using PaaS model.
Please help how to resolve the issue or any alternate solution.
Akanksha
Both SQL Data Sync and Geo-replication are for database redundant using. But we need to know you detailed scenarios, so that we can say which one is more fit. Basically Geo-replication is DB level data synchronization used for DR. SQL Data Sync is Table level data synchronization used for reference data replication for both Azure DB and On-prem DB.
I want to start using SQL Azure and SQL Azure Data Sync (for both on-premises SQL 2008 and Azure).
The Azure Portal still labels data sync 'Preview' - so is it even production ready?
If not when will it be?
Anything labeled as "In-Preview" is considered not supported for production use, though you may opt to do so; just realize that it is currently not recommended. As for timing, I suggest keeping tabs on the SQL team's blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/