(SQL) Tip of the Day: A few useful added images in Azure for SQL on IaaS

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Today’s (SQL) Tip…

There are a few very useful images built into the new Azure portal for putting SQL Server onto IaaS VMs. First and foremost is the ability to have your disks, tempdb, and other items properly setup for IaaS. If you look into the SQL Server 2014 Enterprise (or Standard) Optimized for Transactional Workloads you will get 16 disks all properly striped for the best performance in Azure.

Another extremely useful image is the SQL Server 2014 AlwaysOn image. It automates the deployment of a SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Group for high availability of SQL Server. It provisions 2 SQL Server 2014 Enterprise replicas (primary and secondary) and 1 witness file share in a Windows Cluster. It also provisions 2 Domain Controller replicas (primary and secondary). In addition, it configures an Availability Group Listener for clients to connect to the primary SQL Server replica. You push a few buttons wait 30 minutes and you get a fully setup AlwaysOn AG.