Amazon RDS vs. SQL Azure
Comparing Cloud Database Offerings
Ike Ellis
ike@ellisteam.net
Agenda
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Similarities
Architectural Differences
Pricing
Backup & Restore
Scaling
Database Size
Feature Set
Tooling
Disaster Recovery
Future Roadmap
Similarities
Web Portal
Your
App
Change Connection String
Architecture
SQL Azure Architecture
SQL Server 2008/Denali*
Amazon RDS Architecture
• Spins up a dedicated Virtual Machine
• Less Cloudy
• Built on MySQL/Oracle
WINNER: Azure
• More cloud for the cloud
– Elastic
– Service-Oriented
Pricing
Main SQL Azure Pricing
Main Amazon RDS Pricing - MySQL
Amazon RDS Pricing - Oracle
Both – Additional Charges
• SQL Azure
– Bandwidth – Ingress/Egress
• Amazon
– Storage
– Bandwidth – Ingress/Egress
Create Database Screen
Windows Azure Create Database Screen
WINNER: Both
Amazon Backup Screen #1
Amazon Backup/Restore #2
SQL Azure Backup/Restore – Database
Copy
…but hope for the future
WINNER: Amazon RDS
• But Azure has a bright future.
Two Types of Scaling
Amazon RDS Scale Up
SQL Azure Scale Up
Hope for the future – Dedicated Resources
Amazon RDS & SQL Azure Scale Out
• Home grow both solutions
• Custom Sharding
– EnzoSharding
• Hope for Future with SQL Azure
– Federations
WINNER: Draw
• SQL Azure wins Scale Out
• Amazon RDS wins Scale Up
Database Size
• SQL Azure
• Amazon RDS
• Future: SQL Azure promises to bump it up.
Winner: Amazon RDS
General Feature Set
• Amazon RDS = Full MySQL/Oracle instance
• SQL Azure = Subset of SQL Server Features
– Kinda disappointing
– Whole bunch of cloudy features
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Data Sync
Marketplace
Odata
Silverlight Management Tool
Winner: SQL Azure
Tooling
Amazon RDS Tooling
MySQL WorkBench
All the Oracle Tools
SQL Azure Tooling
• SQL Server Management Studio (No Designers)
– SSIS, BCP, SQLCMD, etc
• Database Manager (Project Houston –
Silverlight)
Tooling Winner: SQL Azure (with
caveat)
• MySQL guys will like the same tooling
• SQL Azure has a ton of tools plus opens up
their platform to non-SQL developers with the
Silverlight tool
Disaster Recovery
Amazon RDS Disaster Recovery
Double the price.
SQL Azure Disaster Recovery
• Future Roadmap – Different Data Centers
Disaster Recovery Winner: SQL Azure
• SQL Azure’s DR is all-inclusive
SQL Azure Future Roadmap
• Very transparent
• 30 sessions on SQL Azure at TechEd this year,
many of them publicly downloadable
• SQL Azure Team Blog is very vocal and open
• SQL Azure Reporting Services
• SQL Azure Federations
• Backup/Restore
• Data Sync
• CLR/XML Indexes/Designers/New Tooling/New
Migration
Amazon RDS Future Roadmap
Roadmap Winner: SQL Azure
• Roadmap is clear and the future looks bright
Overall Winner: Draw - Ugh
Contact Ike
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Email: ike@ellisteam.net
Twitter: @ike_ellis
Blog: blog.ellisteam.net
Website: http://www.ellisteam.net
Phone: 619.922.9801
User Group: http://www.sdtig.com