(lively music)
- Hello, everyone.
I'm Bob Ward,
a Principal Architect on the Azure Data team.
You know in all my years at Microsoft,
I've never seen today a bigger need
to modernize applications using data.
Today, I intend to give you a picture,
a journey that take you into three areas.
What are the challenges we see businesses face today?
How are Azure relational database services
going to solve those challenges?
And what are the tools and strategies we have,
once you decide to make the move to Azure,
to help you make that migration?
You know, the global crisis has caused
immediate need for businesses
over the last couple of years.
We see many businesses ready to move forward,
take the next step.
It could be that they're working back on a strategy
that was stalled for a while.
Maybe they're looking at rebuilding infrastructure
or thinking about a new way to use an infrastructure
or re-establish better disaster recovery strategies.
And especially to stay competitive,
they could be adopting new emerging technologies
in their industry, in their business,
with their application.
You know, we also know that events that are happening
in your industry and business
are affecting your need to modernize or to migrate.
It could be that you have cybersecurity threats
you see happening in your industry to stay ahead of.
Or perhaps maybe you need to drive new innovation
in your business using technology.
Everyone's looking to optimize cost.
They want to get faster time to market,
to actually be more competitive,
to help their business be successful and to stay ahead.
And it certainly could be data center contracts expiring
that make you think about,
what do I do differently?
How do I modernize, how do I transform?
You need data services to help you keep up
and stay ahead of these demands.
You need a company, you need a strategy,
a platform that allows you to,
not just build a strategy for migration,
but have the necessary tools to make those decisions.
We, at Microsoft, have a series
of Azure relational database services
to actually meet the needs of these challenges,
to solve these challenges,
to modernize.
A lot of people ask me though,
"What does it mean to modernize?"
Well, first of all, we think of having
the databases of choice you need
with being fully managed.
Now, what does fully managed mean?
It means being able to focus less on an infrastructure,
less on servers,
and more on application and data.
Well how do we achieve that?
Various different ways that you're going to see
across our different Azure relational services.
Number one, we want to give you scale,
scale that you can just declaratively ask for
without having to worry about the infrastructure
or how that works.
It needs to be limitless.
It needs to grow with the needs of my business.
And, quite frankly, it needs to be dynamic,
in some cases, automatic.
You need to know that all of my data services
that I choose to use in the cloud
could have built-in high availability
and disaster recovery
in the product itself.
Something I don't have to worry about maintaining.
I need flexibility.
I need to be able to choose the engine I want
but I also need deployment options
within these various choices.
I need it to give me the resources I need
to meet the needs of my application, my business.
And I certainly need the languages
that are specific to my industry,
specific to my developers,
and across platform.
Everybody's concerned about security.
I need to know that the engine itself that I choose
has all the built-in engine features I'm used to having.
It could be encryption,
it could be authentication,
things that a database normally provides.
But can a platform like Azure give me new innovation?
Can it do things in the cloud,
things like Microsoft Defender,
to stay ahead of the game?
Look at vulnerabilities,
look for threats.
Now what I'm also expecting when I want to modernize,
and, again, modernization is transforming
your business and your application,
is I need a platform.
And Azure has it.
All of our relational data services are built-in,
proven compute storage and networking services
offered in over 60 regions around the globe.
It's the largest of any cloud provider.
And there has to be an advantage as well
in moving in the cloud.
What else do I get besides the fact
that it's managed now for me?
The infrastructure is managed,
I focus on the app and data.
Well, wouldn't it be nice to integrate in
with other services offered in Azure?
And we do that.
Take a look at Azure App Service.
Today, you have web applications that naturally fit
with these different databases in your environment.
Wouldn't it be nice if I could migrate that web application
into a cloud-born solution
or even build new cloud-born applications?
But I don't want to just move the app into the cloud,
I want a tight integration.
I want to know that Microsoft has the tools I need
and support within the languages
so that when I make this move for Azure App Services,
it's very natural to me.
I have everything I need,
so that it's less time to get that application
up and running in the cloud.
So let's do this, let's do a deeper dive
into the different Azure relational services
that are going to help you modernize.
Let's talk more about Azure SQL,
a family of SQL databases all running in the cloud.
You have choices here.
Think about SQL server and Azure Virtual Machine.
The full SQL server box running in a virtual machine,
where the virtual machine and the host,
the infrastructure,
are powered and managed by Azure.
Or how about Azure SQL Managed Instance?
A full SQL server instance
where you worry even less about the infrastructure
or even managing the operating system,
things behind the scenes, and the virtual machine.
Or Azure SQL Database, a contained database
perfect for those new cloud-born applications
including new technologies like Serverless and Hyperscale.
Or how would you like the SQL server engine
into the form factor of an IoT device?
That's Azure SQL Edge.
If you think across these technologies,
you may ask yourself,
is there some consistency for me though,
depending on the choice I make?
And there is.
All of your existing SQL skills apply in the cloud,
whether it's T-SQL, or it's the engine or it's the tools.
And since it's a SQL engine,
you have built-in security capabilities;
whether that's encryption,
whether that's authentication,
but also combined with innovations and Azure
like Microsoft Defender to stay ahead of those threats.
And then this is one of the great stories,
our past services for Azure SQL are versionless.
So wouldn't it be nice to stay up-to-date,
no more patching,
keep up with the latest new features
and fixes from Microsoft?
This is going to empower several things.
This is all about modernization, right?
So how do you transform your business?
Well, guess what?
You have reduction of cost of ownership
because of these capabilities.
And you look at these different use cases.
I love this first one because a lot of customers
don't know all the different compliance options
and certifications we have on Azure.
So if you use SQL server and virtual machine,
you already have built in HIPAA compliance
within the Azure ecosystem.
And then if you're thinking about a migration
or a move from SQL server to Azure SQL Managed Instance,
think just not migration, but modernization.
Again, transforming the way you do your business.
So let's talk about Azure SQL Managed Instance
or MI as we like to call it.
You know, I like to think of it as the best of SQL server
combined with the benefits of a fully managed service.
Well, what do we really mean by that?
We mean you get the full power of the SQL server engine,
even instance-level capabilities
like SQL Agent Resource Governor Replication,
including things like Windows Authentication.
We provide a virtual network
isolating you with your resources
but even allow you to connect yourself
with on-premises networks.
We keep managed instance up-to-date,
it is a versionless SQL server.
So don't worry about version upgrades
or patching of the operating system or the SQL server.
And we have built-in and managed high availability
and disaster recovery.
This is paramount to anybody
trying to modernize in the cloud.
We back it up with a service level agreement.
You need to make sure that the managed instance
has those built-in, and tried and true,
proven performance and security capabilities
like intelligent query processing
or transparent data encryption.
If you think about what we've talked about,
not only is it now fully managed, you can see why,
but look at this statement,
"We intend to provide an environment
where virtually no code changes are needed for your app
to make the migration
and modernization of managed instance."
Now, if you think about the concept of managed instance,
some of our customers have said
"I'm not really ready to move my entire instance
and database into the cloud,
but I sure like that platform
as a service managed instance capability."
Well, along comes Azure Arc.
It could be that you need to run this
on premises for compliance reasons
or control within your environment,
or you'd even like to deploy this
in a multi-cloud environment.
Azure Arc, enable SQL managed instance,
combines the power of Kubernetes,
so you get the infrastructure of your choice,
with the fully managed services of managed instance
like I talked about earlier.
Well, what do I mean?
I mean like, staying always current or up-to-date,
like you can do in the cloud.
Or how about being able to scale your data,
your database, your cores,
and do that a very dynamic way with almost zero downtime?
And then if I'm going to connect myself to Azure,
can I get a unified view of what I'm doing with Arc,
with other Azure SQL assets?
Of course you can, in fact, customers tell us
even when they're making this choice,
they might combine this with other Azure SQL assets.
So I'd like to see things like metrics and logging
through the Azure portal or through command-line interfaces.
I mean, look at Ferguson Industries.
They told us they love this option
because they need the power
of the infrastructure of their choice,
but they love the ability not to worry
about upgrades anymore.
Now people have asked me,
"Bob that's really nice technologies
but is anybody really seeing success with this?"
And you look at these customer examples,
and they are great examples
of customers that tell us they are.
You know, Komatsu didn't just achieve
better performance with managed instance,
they reduced total cost of ownership.
Perfect example of modernization.
I love the quote from The Academy,
"Nobody understands SQL better than Microsoft."
And then you think about Mosaic Life Care,
they actually need to move their application into the cloud,
and so they felt that using a cloud solution
like Azure SQL Managed Instance
fit their needs and made it easier
to make that a total solution
to drive their business forward.
Well, let's now talk about
Azure relational open source database services.
So some of our customers have told us,
"SQL is a great technology but I like open source.
That fits the need of my developers,
my business, and my application."
And if you think about what we're providing here,
we're providing the most commonly used
open source relational databases in the industry,
Postgres, MySQL, and MariaDB.
So we're using the power of community databases
with the innovations of Azure
as a managed service.
And you may be asking yourself,
well how can you do a managed service
with open source databases?
Well consider this,
it's highly available.
That theme again.
How about built-in high availability
so I worry less about infrastructure,
I will focus more on app and data,
but I have flexibility?
If you think about our flex server options
for Postgres and MySQL,
those are great choices to take advantage
of a lot of redundancies in the cloud
with a lot more options on how you configure the servers
that power those technologies.
But I'm open source.
I need to make sure that you're providing versions
of these databases that match what the community expects
and they innovate all the time on.
And we do that with these Azure services.
All of these represent examples and use cases
of how all of our open source relational service of Azure
can help you modernize.
But just like in managed instance,
are there customers that have seen success here?
And there are.
If you think about HarvestMark,
how quickly could they move to the cloud?
They were able to take Postgres environments they had,
it didn't take them months and weeks,
it took them hours to be successful and get into Azure.
Now I want to know about developers.
I want to make sure developers
are comfortable with these technologies.
They're the lifeblood behind open source.
So it's really nice to see that GeekWire,
the developers from that organization told us
that using MySQL in Azure database made them successful.
This is the modernization story.
This is them taking advantage
of managed services in the cloud,
focusing more on the application.
And then SaaS, it was kind of like a launchpad.
They went to Azure Kubernetes service,
got comfortable with the cloud,
comfortable with managed services,
allowed to make that jump into Postgres.
Now what's the theme across the managed instance stories
and the open source stories?
It's modernization.
It's transforming business and applications
to be more resilient, to be faster.
Remember those triggers we talked about?
It's responding to all those things in a very efficient way
and using the power of Azure to do it.
So you've learned about Azure SQL
and Azure open source relational databases
and the capabilities they provide, that are managed.
Now you're thinking,
I might want to make this journey myself.
What are the tools and strategies to make the journey?
You may be using any of these choices on the left here
of databases that are on-premises or in other clouds.
And we have the tools that can help you assess
for possible migration blockers
and make smart choices.
It could be SQL Server Migration Assistant,
which is perfect for those non-SQL sources
to assess what your environment looks like
and help you make decisions to make migration.
Or it could be our new extension for Azure Data Studio,
which is really perfect for SQL service
running these other environments
and giving you very precise guidance
on what are the right deployment options in the cloud.
Once you've seen these assessments
and you're ready to make that move,
both of these tools offer great options
to actually migrate your data,
help you migrate some of your server code,
and continue to make that journey
to make it fast and efficient in the cloud.
Even offering, in some cases, options to do this online
with very little downtime so that you're assured
you can keep your business up and running.
If you want to learn more about our strategies
and migration tools,
go to aka.ms/datamigration.
Well, I hope I've given you the picture I promised,
and the fact that we talked about modern challenges
you face today in your business and events,
things you're doing to try to move forward
and plan what's next.
And the fact that our Azure relational services
cannot just keep up with the demand for this
but stay ahead of it.
We talked about the fact that our Azure SQL
and open source relational services are fully managed.
And remember, managed equals modernization.
Stay ahead.
Worry less about the infrastructure.
Focus on the app and the data.
But still give you the choices you need,
where you need it,
and things like the security
and built-in availability you need.
Azure SQL and Azure open source relational databases,
we believe give you the choices you need
to match your requirements,
combining it with the power of the cloud.
Find the right choice for yourself today
at aka.ms/azuredatabases.
Thank you for your time today.
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