Tag Archives: SQL Server

Pricing guidance for SQL Server VMs in Azure

There’s an excellent article from Microsoft that gives some great advice on saving money when running SQL Server VMs in Azure. Tips include:

  • using a free edition of SQL Server (Developer or Express) where possible
  • choosing the SQL meter for temporary or periodic workloads, and bringing your own licence via the Azure Hybrid Benefit for workloads with a known lifetime and scale
  • correctly sizing the VM – perhaps choosing one of the special VMs that are optimised for certain types of SQL Server workloads which have a high level of resources but a lower virtualised core count
  • shutting down VMs where possible, perhaps using an automatic shutdown facility

Find the article here: http://bit.ly/2Ndp7jd.

Changes to the Azure Hybrid Benefit

The August 2019 Product Terms details some changes to the Azure Hybrid Benefit to include licensing options for the recently announced Azure Dedicated Host, so here’s a summary of the rules for both Windows Server and SQL Server.

Windows Server

  • Standard licences may now be used on-premises OR for virtual machines running in Azure OR for virtual machines running in an Azure Dedicated Host. The licensing for both Azure and Azure Dedicated Host follow the “groups of 8” rules. Licenses may now be assigned to both on-premises servers and Azure for a period of 180 days for migration purposes – this is an increase from the previous 31-day allowance
  • Datacenter licences may now be used on-premises AND for virtual machines running in Azure (no change) OR for virtual machines running in an Azure Dedicated Host. Customers can choose to license individual virtual machines running in Azure Dedicated Host following the “groups of 8” rules, or can license all the physical cores of the Azure Dedicated Host and run an unlimited number of virtual machines. Customers moving from on-premises to Azure Dedicated Host have the same 180-day migration window as Standard licences

SQL Server

  • Standard licences may now be used on-premises OR for virtual machines running in Azure OR for Azure SQL Database Services OR for virtual machines running in an Azure Dedicated Host. The licensing rules for Azure Dedicated Host are the same as for virtual machines running in Azure. There is no change to the 180-day migration period allowed when moving from an on-premises to an Azure infrastructure
  • Enterprise licences may be used in the same scenarios as the Standard licences above. However, there is an additional licensing option for Azure Dedicated Host which allows customers to license all the physical cores of the Azure Dedicated Host to run SQL Server in an unlimited number of virtual machines

You can find the August 2019 Product Terms here: http://bit.ly/MSproductterms and there’s an Azure Hybrid Benefit FAQ here: http://bit.ly/2g1HEwS.

SQL Server in Azure: IaaS or PaaS?

The Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server allows you to choose where you use a SQL Server licence: either on-premises or in Azure. Not only that, you’re allowed to choose between an Azure virtual machine (IaaS) or the Azure SQL Database service (PaaS). This article is useful if you’re interested in an overview of the business motivations for choosing one Azure option over another: http://bit.ly/SQLOptions. Customers are eligible for the Azure Hybrid Benefit by having active Software Assurance on their licences or buying a Server Subscription.

Extended Security Updates

Microsoft announce Extended Security Updates for Windows Server and SQL Server 2008/2008 R2. These products go out of extended support in the near future: 9 July 2019 for SQL Server, and 14 January 2020 for Windows Server. Extended Security Updates give three more years of support and, if the workloads are moved to Azure, then there’s no charge. Customers with Enterprise Agreements may purchase Extended Security Updates for their remaining on-premises deployments, if required. Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2uAxwmw and a Datasheet and an FAQ here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.

Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server

Microsoft announce the preview of Azure SQL Database Managed Instance, a new deployment option in SQL Database that streamlines the migration of SQL Server workloads to a fully managed database service in Azure. Interesting from a licensing perspective is that you can use your SQL Server licences with SA to pay a reduced rate on a Managed Instance via the new Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server.

Managed Instances are available in 8, 16, or 24 core flavours and existing on-premises Core licenses with SA can be allocated to these instances to pay the aforementioned reduced rate. SQL Server Standard Core licences cover one virtual core, and SQL Server Enterprise Core licences cover four virtual cores.

So, let’s take a look at The Papaya Hire Company’s existing SQL Server licences to see what SQL Database Managed Instances they could license. They have 16 Standard licences and 8 Enterprise licences – all with SA of course. If we work out the number of virtual cores these licences will cover we get (16 x 1) + (8 x 4) = 48 virtual cores. This means they could choose 6 x 8-core instances, or 3 x 16-core instances, or 2 x 24-core instances, or any combination of those.

If you don’t fancy doing the calculations yourself then you can use the Azure Hybrid Benefit Savings Calculator to do the mathematical heavy lifting. Find that calculator here: http://bit.ly/2pB61XH and don’t forget the usual Azure Pricing Calculator which will allow you to compare pricing for Azure SQL Database Manged Instances with and without applying the Azure Hybrid Benefit: http://bit.ly/AzurePricingCalculator. The Microsoft announcement is also useful for an overview of the features and the licensing and you can find that here: http://bit.ly/2u9SQ4D. If you’re interested in the documentation around the Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server then refer to page 51 of the March 2018 Product Terms document.

SQL Server 2017 Licensing Datasheet

There’s a brand new SQL Server 2017 Licensing Datasheet to support general availability of this product on 2nd October 2017. There aren’t changes to the fundamental licensing but this datasheet is a nice summary including useful information such as the differences in SA benefits between Standard and Enterprise editions.

Find it in the Application Servers section here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.

SQL Server 2017

Microsoft announce that SQL Server 2017 will be generally available on 2nd October 2017. The blog post announcement is here: http://bit.ly/2xDEo4E and gives you some detail on the (actually quite exciting) new features that will be part of SQL Server 2017.

However, if you’re more interested in a summary, here are the top three things to know from a licensing perspective:

  • A new “Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server” allows customers to re-use existing on-premises SQL Server licences to run database-as-a-service in Azure
  • R Server is renamed “Machine Learning Server for Hadoop” and is now available to all SQL Server Enterprise edition customers as an SA benefit
  • It’s the first version of SQL Server to run on Windows Server, Linux and Docker, and there’s a new “SQL Server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux offer” which gives discounts off both SQL Server 2017 and the operating system to help with migrations

Premium Assurance

Microsoft announce Premium Assurance on 8 December 2016 (http://bit.ly/2hxi0ix) which is a way of adding six more years of product support for either Windows Server or SQL Server.

There’s a useful datasheet which gives more details, but here are the highlights: you need SA to be able to purchase Premium Assurance, and you must purchase it for ALL servers with active SA in an EA, EES or SCE. You also need to acquire Premium Assurance for a product before it goes out of support, and the price will go up over the next few years – from March 2017 it will be 5% of the licence cost rising to 12% from July 2019.

You can find the datasheet in the Core Infrastructure section in our Licensing Guides emporium: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.