The question: Is it possible to point a view in database A running on Azure SQL Database service to tables/views on a SQL server running in a VM? I've tried external tables but come up short.
Scenario:
Two applications that is exchanging data, from two different vendors.
We've got three databases in total. One for each application and an integration database with views that both applications use either directly or through views.
The issue now is that we want to migrate to Azure and would prefer to use the Azure SQL Database service as much as possible, but one of the applications is not ready for it and therefor it's database has to be hosted on either a managed instance or in a VM.
The issue now is that there's view's in database A (running on Azure SQL Database service) that points to views and tables in the integration database, which again references tables in database B (running on SQL Server on the VM).
The short answer is "no". You can use external tables to query other SQL Azure databases, but there is no exact analogue for linked servers in Azure SQL Database. You can use SQL Azure Managed Instance (which supports SQL-SQL linked servers but not arbitrary linked servers).
There is a workaround, however. You can run SQL Server in an Azure VM and have it point to SQL Azure as a target as well as the other sources you want to connect. Then you can push data to/from Azure SQL DB using the SQL Server in a VM. You don't have the same management overhead in this approach since you don't really need to host data in the SQL Server if you don't want to do so. Note that this will be slower than doing direct connections to SQL Azure, but you can try to do this for a period of time if it would help you during a migration.
Related
I'm in the process of testing/playing about with Azure. We have moved an on-premise SQL Server database to an Azure Managed Instance, however, this contained a linked server to a Progress database via an ODBC DSN connection.
Of course this no longer works. Does anyone know if this is possible or will I have to import the various Progress tables into Azure via a different way?
Thanks.
You can't install drivers on a Managed Instance, so it only supports linked servers that use the SQL Server drivers.
As a workaround you can "double-hop" through a Linked Server on a small Azure VM running Windows and SQL Server Express Edition. See eg [Using Heterogeneous Linked Servers from Azure SQL MI][1]
Which is enough of a pain that you'd want to load the data into MI using some external tool, like SSIS or Azure Data Factory.
[1]: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/modernization-best-practices-and/using-heterogeneous-linked-servers-from-azure-sql-mi/ba-p/3074530
Is there a proper way to move a SQL Server 2016 sharded database from self-hosted to Azure Database?
I have a SQL Server 2016 sharded database that is part of the platform (Sitecore 10) I'm working with. It has a Shard Map Manager database and two Shard databases. I want to migrate the databases from self-hosted to Azure Database.
When the database is in a SQL Server Instance, it has one login mapped to the Shard Map Manger user and both Shard users. Everything works great. Since Azure Database does not use logins the same way and the databases are partially contained, I created separate users in each database in Azure with the same name and password.
Next, I migrated the schema with Azure Data Migration Services and then the data. There are some stored procedures that Sitecore provides to setup permissions and I ran those.
Finally, I updated the ServerName and DatabaseName fields in the [__ShardManagement].[ShardsGlobal] table for the ShardMapManager DB and the [__ShardManagement].[ShardsLocal] table in both Shard databases to match the new server and database names.
When I updated the app to use the new database, it spewed errors into the log, ultimately tracking to a failed login for the user. There are 13 other databases for the app which were also migrated and work fine, only the sharded database does not work in the app. I ran a PowerShell script that tests the connection string for all of the databases. All of the connection strings were successful. Backing out only the connection strings for the sharded database fixes the errors proving that the connection to the sharded databases is the problem.
What did I do wrong and what should I do to fix it?
If the requirement is only to migrate the databases from local to Azure, the best possible way is to use SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).
The advantage is that you can mention the new database name on Azure while migrating itself and hence no need to change later. But just make sure same named database shouldn't available already in Azure SQL Server.
You can follow the migration steps from my this answer.
Also, my suggestion is to go through the official documents Assessment rules for SQL Server to Azure SQL Database migration, Troubleshoot connecting to the SQL Server Database Engine. I'm sure you will find the useful insights there which could help to make migrated database work properly with the apps.
I am somewhat surprised (still after all these SQL Server Installed Instance (Windows VM Azure) that pushing data, on a nightly schedule, to an SQL Azure database is not straight forward. I see some articles and direction to 'migrate' schemas and data, but what about a nightly job to push from my SQL Server instance to individual client SQL Azure data stores?
Should I start with SSIS? Azure data factory? Python libraries? Why isn't a connection between the two 'native'?
Again, all links and references so far have been for one time migration. I want the two in a data Eco-system with reliable flow.
John
We do this using SSIS running from the on prem side, because we already have a bunch of SSIS projects hosted on prem, and have yet to migrate anything into azure data factory. We are using SQL authentication to make the connection to the SQL Azure database.
I'm preparing a migration plan to migrate on-premises SQL Server to Azure. On our on-prem there are two sql instance (DevSQL01\Dev and DevSQL01\Demo) running on single VM. Can we create a same scenario on azure, i.e. can we create two SQL instance on a single Auzure SQL VM or is their any other option?
I know i can create a windows VM on Auzre and install SQL Server and create two instance manually, but i like to find out options like managed instance, elastic pool, etc.. has the feature to host named instance by default.
Forgive me if this is noob question, I just started exploring cloud technologies.
On all flavors of Azure SQL PaaS (Managed Instance, DTU-model, vCore, Serverless, Hyperscale) the concept of named instance does not exist. Your best option is a SQL VM where you can run SQL Setup and install multiple instances.
It seems you need it for development purposes, then you may want to install SQL Server Developer Edition to avoid licensing costs as mentioned here. If this will be a Production server, remember to balance memory usage across the two SQL Server instances and leave some memory for the operating system to avoid impact on the server performance.
I have DB in my SQL Server. I want to replicate the same DB with all the Views inside it into Azure and sync the same SQL Server DB with replicated DB on Azure on daily basis.
I have no idea about Azure.
You can migrate a SQL Server 2005 or later database to a single or pooled database in Azure SQL Database. For best performance during the import process, it’s better to drop indexed views and recreate them once finished. For more details, you may refer to this article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-cloud-migrate.
You can set up Azure SQL Data Sync by creating a hybrid sync group that contains both Azure SQL Database and SQL Server instances. For more details on how to achieve this, you may refer to this document: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-get-started-sql-data-sync.
Note: Does SQL Data Sync fully create and provision tables?
Views and Stored Procedures are not created on the destination database.
You can use SQL Data Sync to sync the base tables of your views but SQL Data Sync cannot sync views. Sync data from views is quite complex and not always achievable and for that reason SQL Data Sync does not do it.
Use the step-by-step procedure described here to configure the synchronization. You need to make your SQL Server instance a "hub", your SQL Azure Database a "member" on the sync configuration. Configure the "Sync frequency" parameter/field to occur every X days or X hours.