SQL proving Expensive? Try Azure!
You may be quite shocked at the high cost of SQL Server these days. Once you’ve broken past the free SQL Server 2012/2014 Express limits of 10GB Databases, 1GB RAM etc, you’ll be yearning for SQL Server Standard, BI or Enterprise – but with a painful trip to finance or the bank (even though we maintain incredibly competitive online pricing)! It doesn’t matter if you’re on Amazon Web Services Elastic Cloud Compute AWS EC2 or other hosted servers, you’ll still hit that monthly cost wall.
That’s because SQL Server is high-grade software with huge investments by Microsoft to develop and support its power – but blah blah we don’t need to tell you that! Both SMEs and corporates feel the pain and don’t want to spend upfront capital on perpetual licences – far better to spread the cost, but without paying extra on potentially unnecessary Software Assurance Open Value. So short of us providing you with a dedicated or shared server with Service Provider Licence Agreement SPLA licencing (the most cost effective solution, but you must maintain the server), Microsoft Azure DB is the simple way to go. It also saves you setting up new hardware and systems on your site, where connectivity may also be limited.
Note that although currently listed, Web and Business is retiring on Sept 2015 – so best avoided and the standard Tiers used instead, a key subset is:
| Database Throughput Units | Database Size | Point in time Restore | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S0 | 10 | 250 GB | 14 Days | £0.0124/hr (~£10/mo) |
| S1 | 20 | 250 GB | 14 Days | £0.0247/hr (~£19/mo) |
| S2 | 50 | 250 GB | 14 Days | £0.0616/hr (~£46/mo) |
So £10 a month (if you leave it on constantly) will give you a hosted SQL Server Standard database you can connect to encrypted across the internet. Only pay more when you verify DTU need and check their SLA for speed and availability.
Of course, if you need to query SQL Server directly and don’t want to send large amounts of data across the internet, you’ll be better off provisioning your own virtual server on Azure and adding SQL Server licencing to it. Then you can use Remote Desktop to administrate and run your queries or apps directly on the server for direct connections.
Here’s the SQL costs which you add to the Virtual Servers themselves (listed underneath):
| Applicable VM instance | Number Of Virtual Cores | SQL Web | SQL Standard | SQL Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A0, A1 Basic or Standard | 1 core | £0.0196/hr (~£15/mo) |
£0.2444/hr (~£183/mo) |
£0.9164/hr (~£682/mo) |
| A2 Basic or Standard A5 Standard |
2 cores | £0.0196/hr (~£15/mo) |
£0.2444/hr (~£183/mo) |
£0.9164/hr (~£682/mo) |
| A3 Basic or Standard A6 Standard |
4 cores | £0.0196/hr (~£15/mo) |
£0.2444/hr (~£183/mo) |
£0.9164/hr (~£682/mo) |
| A4 Basic or Standard A7, A8 Standard |
8 cores | £0.0391/hr (~£30/mo) |
£0.4888/hr (~£364/mo) |
£1.8327/hr (~£1,364/mo) |
| A9 Standard | 16 cores | £0.0782/hr (~£59/mo) |
£0.9775/hr (~£727/mo) |
£3.6654/hr (~£2,728/mo) |
Note Web Edition is listed but subject to retirement as above – it’s also limited to public internet accessible services (web pages, sites, applications) and not Line-Of-Business (registered users) where you would have to switch to Standard Edition.
Virtual Machines:
| Instance | Cores | RAM | Disk sizes | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A0 | 1 | 0.75 GB | 20 GB | £0.011/hr (~£8/mo) |
| A1 | 1 | 1.75 GB | 40 GB | £0.0471/hr (~£35/mo) |
| A2 | 2 | 3.5 GB | 60 GB | £0.0941/hr (~£71/mo) |
| A3 | 4 | 7 GB | 120 GB | £0.1882/hr (~£140/mo) |
| A4 | 8 | 14 GB | 240 GB | £0.3764/hr (~£280/mo) |
So, a 2 Core 3.5GB RAM (including Windows Server 2012 R2) running SQL Web Edition will cost only £86 per month. The same A2 will cost £254 monthly with SQL Server Standard. You can switch easily between them and if you only need to run them during office hours or sessions, you can ramp up and/or save hugely.
If you’re thrifty, you’ll see that you can actually sneakily provision your A2/A3 etc Virtual Server and then query an Azure DB for £19 rather than licence an entire SQL Server! Even better if Web Edition satisfies requirements – it will be less at £15 and unlimited DBs and Instances.
Naturally, you can also provision an additional server for that if you want multi-tier client/server operation, including running Active Directory seperately or using Azure’s own AD service (very handy) if you need everything on a domain. Use geolocation to keep servers together – easy once you’ve set up the preferred network.
Oh, and the Azure backup service is also incredibly useful – instant offsite disaster recovery for any files. Although with a SQL DB as listed here, you get included automatic self-service recovery on previous 14 days!
When you try Azure, you open up a world of opportunity – you can simply buy Azure vouchers on our store which will apply to any service you procure at your convenience. If you’d like us to provision it all for you, we can do that for a simple half-day charge – and you can adjust your resources afterwards once you verify requirements.
Prices correct at time of publishing and exclusive of Vat. E&OE.
Just contact us!