PATCHED Microsoft SQL Server 2018 Enterprise Edition With SP1 X64
Lillia Iniguez
This article provides an overview of Azure SQL Managed Instance, a fully managed platform as a service (PaaS) database engine that handles most database management functions such as upgrading, patching, backups, and monitoring without user involvement.
Azure SQL Managed Instance is a scalable cloud database service that's always running on the latest stable version of the Microsoft SQL Server database engine and a patched OS with 99.99% built-in high availability, offering close to 100% feature compatibility with SQL Server. PaaS capabilities built into Azure SQL Managed enable you to focus on domain-specific database administration and optimization activities that are critical for your business while Microsoft handles backups, as well as patching and updating of the SQL and operating system code, which removes the burden on managing the underlying infrastructure.
Azure SQL Managed Instance is a PaaS service that has near 100% compatibility with the latest Enterprise Edition SQL Server database engine, providing a native virtual network (VNet) implementation that addresses common security concerns, and a business model favorable to existing SQL Server customers. SQL Managed Instance allows existing SQL Server customers to lift and shift their on-premises applications to the cloud with minimal application and database changes. At the same time, SQL Managed Instance provides all PaaS capabilities (automatic patching and version updates, automated backups, high availability) to drastically reduce management overhead and the total cost of ownership (TCO).
SQL Managed Instance is designed for customers looking to migrate a large number of apps from an on-premises or IaaS, self-built, or ISV provided environment to a fully managed PaaS cloud environment, with as low a migration effort as possible. Using the fully automated Azure Data Migration Service, or the Managed Instance link, customers can lift and shift their existing SQL Server database or SQL Server instance to Azure SQL Managed Instance, which offers compatibility with SQL Server and complete isolation of customer instances with native VNet support.
With Software Assurance, you can exchange your existing licenses for discounted rates on SQL Managed Instance using the Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server. SQL Managed Instance is the best migration destination in the cloud for SQL Server instances that require high security and a rich programmability surface.
SQL Managed Instance runs with all of the features of the most recent version of SQL Server, including online operations, automatic plan corrections, and other enterprise performance enhancements. A comparison of the features available is explained in Feature comparison: Azure SQL Managed Instance versus SQL Server.
Azure SQL Managed Instance has been certified against a number of compliance standards. For more information, see the Microsoft Azure Compliance Offerings, where you can find the most current list of SQL Managed Instance compliance certifications, listed under SQL Database.
SQL Managed Instance aims to deliver close to 100% surface area compatibility with the latest SQL Server version through a staged release plan, which means that most features of SQL Server are also compatible with Azure SQL Managed Instance.
SQL Managed Instance supports backward compatibility to SQL Server 2008 databases. Direct migration from SQL Server 2005 is supported, and the compatibility level for migrated SQL Server 2005 databases is updated to SQL Server 2008.
For a comprehensive list of SQL Server and Azure SQL Managed Instance features, review SQL Managed Instance feature comparison.
For a list of T-SQL differences between SQL Managed Instance and SQL Server, review SQL Managed Instance T-SQL differences from SQL Server.
SQL Managed Instance benefits from being always-up-to-date in the cloud, which means that some features in SQL Server might be obsolete, retired, or have alternatives. There are specific cases when tools need to recognize that a particular feature works in a slightly different way or that the service is running in an environment you don't fully control.
SQL Managed Instance enables system administrators to spend less time on administrative tasks because the service either performs them for you or greatly simplifies those tasks. For example, OS/RDBMS installation and patching, dynamic instance resizing and configuration, backups, database replication (including system databases), high availability configuration, and configuration of health and performance monitoring data streams.
The vCore-based purchasing model for SQL Managed Instance gives you flexibility, control, transparency, and a straightforward way to translate on-premises workload requirements to the cloud. This model allows you to change compute, memory, and storage based upon your workload needs. The vCore model is also eligible for up to 55 percent savings with the Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server.
Azure SQL Managed Instance provides management operations that you can use to automatically deploy new managed instances, update instance properties, and delete instances when no longer needed. Detailed explanation of management operations can be found in Azure SQL Managed Instance management operations overview.
Place multiple managed instances in the same subnet, wherever that is allowed by your security requirements, as that will bring you additional benefits. Co-locating instances in the same subnet significantly simplifies networking infrastructure maintenance and reduces instance provisioning time, since a long provisioning duration is associated with the cost of deploying the first managed instance in a subnet.
Migration of an encrypted database to SQL Managed Instance is supported via Azure Database Migration Service or native restore. If you plan to migrate an encrypted database using native restore, migration of the existing TDE certificate from the SQL Server instance to SQL Managed Instance is a required step. For more information about migration options, see SQL Server to Azure SQL Managed Instance Guide.
SQL Managed Instance supports traditional SQL Server database engine logins and logins integrated with Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory). Microsoft Entra server principals (logins) are an Azure cloud version of on-premises database logins that use in your on-premises environment. Microsoft Entra server principals (logins) enable you to specify users and groups from your Microsoft Entra tenant as true instance-scoped principals, capable of performing any instance-level operation, including cross-database queries within the same managed instance.
SQL Managed Instance enables you to centrally manage identities of database users and other Microsoft services with Microsoft Entra integration. This capability simplifies permission management and enhances security. Microsoft Entra ID supports multifactor authentication to increase data and application security while supporting a single sign-on process.
A new syntax is introduced to create Microsoft Entra server principals (logins), FROM EXTERNAL PROVIDER. For more information on the syntax, see CREATE LOGIN, and review the Provision a Microsoft Entra administrator for SQL Managed Instance article.
Authorization refers to what a user can do within a database in Azure SQL Managed Instance, and is controlled by your user account's database role memberships and object-level permissions. SQL Managed Instance has the same authorization capabilities as SQL Server 2022.
SQL Managed Instance targets user scenarios with mass database migration from on-premises or IaaS database implementations. SQL Managed Instance supports several database migration options that are discussed in the migration guides. See Migration overview: SQL Server to Azure SQL Managed Instance for more information.
Azure Database Migration Service is a fully managed service designed to enable seamless migrations from multiple database sources to Azure data platforms with minimal downtime. This service streamlines the tasks required to move existing third-party and SQL Server databases to Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and SQL Server on Azure VM. See How to migrate your on-premises database to SQL Managed Instance using Database Migration Service.
The Managed Instance link uses distributed availability groups to extend your SQL Server on-premises Always On availability group hosted anywhere to Azure SQL Managed Instance in a safe and secure manner, replicating data in near real-time.
Because the link feature enables minimal downtime migration, you can migrate to your managed instance as you maintain your primary workload online. Although it's currently possible to achieve online migrations to the General Purpose service tier with other solutions, the link feature is the only solution that allows true online migrations to the Business Critical tier.
Amazon RDS supports several versions and editions of Microsoft SQL Server. The following table shows the most recent supported minor version of each major version. For the full list of supported versions, editions, and RDS engine versions, see Microsoft SQL Server versions on Amazon RDS.
For information about licensing for SQL Server, see Licensing Microsoft SQL Server on Amazon RDS. For information about SQL Serverbuilds, see this Microsoft support article about Where to find information about the latest SQL Server builds.
With Amazon RDS, you can create DB instances and DB snapshots, point-in-time restores, andautomated or manual backups. DB instances running SQL Server can be used inside a VPC. Youcan also use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to connect to a DB instance running SQL Server, and you can use transparent data encryption (TDE) toencrypt data at rest. Amazon RDS currently supports Multi-AZ deployments for SQL Server using SQLServer Database Mirroring (DBM) or Always On Availability Groups (AGs) as a high-availability, failover solution.
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