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Comparisons between Azure SQL and CosmosDB

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Dear Friend this article is going to show you basic compression between Azure SQL and Cosmos DB, I mention everything below in points take a review.

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Name

Azure SQL

Azure Cosmos DB
 

 

    
 

Release

·         In 2013, Microsoft introduced Azure SQL Database which has its origin in the on-premises Microsoft SQL Server

·         In 2017, Microsoft introduced final release of Azure Cosmos DB which has schema-less and generally classified as a NoSQL database. It extends the earlier Azure DocumentDB, which was released in 2014.
 

Definition

·         Azure SQL Database is a relational database-as-a service using the Microsoft SQL Server Engine.

·         SQL Database is a general-purpose relational database service in Microsoft Azure that supports structures such as relational data, JSON, spatial, and XML.

·         Azure SQL Database is a managed database service which is different from AWS RDS which is a container service.

·         Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a turnkey globally distributed, multi-model database system sold under the SaaS model. Cost is determined by data throughput and used storage capacity.

·         The system must deliver predictable and guaranteed end-to-end low read and write latencies at the 99th percentile.

·         Azure Cosmos DB’s implementation of comprehensive SLAs for throughput, latency, consistency and availability. These SLAs clearly specify the tradeoffs between latency, consistency, availability and throughput in a globally distributed setup.
 

Storage size

·         The current size limit of an Azure SQL Database is 4 TB, and will probably end up around 10 TB in the near future.

·         Azure Cosmos DB which has Unlimited storage limit at all. Developers can specify how much storage they will need. Space directly affect how much the user is charged but either can be tuned up dynamically to handle peak load and down to save costs when more lightly loaded.
 

Pricing (Aug 2017)

·         Azure SQL DB starts with €4,20 a month

·         SSD Storage (per GB) – $0.25 GB/mo

·         Reserved RUs/second (per 100 RUs, 400 RUs minimum) – $0.008/hr
 

Consistency

·         Immediate Consistency

Cosmos DB provides five consistency levels:

1.       Strong,
2.       Bounded-Staleness,
3.       Session,
4.       Consistent Prefix And
5.       Eventual.
 

Transaction concepts 

·         ACID

·         Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition
 

User concepts

 

·         fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

·         Access rights can be defined down to the item level
 

Database model

·         Relational DBMS

·         Document Store

·         Graph DBMS

·         Key-Value Store

·         Wide Column Store

Key Capabilities

·         Continuous learning of your unique app patterns, adaptive performance tuning, and automatic improvements to reliability and data protection

·         Scaling as needed, with virtually no app downtime

·         Management and monitoring of multitenant apps with isolation benefits of one-customer-per-database

·         Leverage open source tools like cheetah, sql-cli, VS Code  and Microsoft tools like Visual Studio and SQL Server Management Studio, Azure Management Portal, PowerShell, and REST APIs

·         Data protection with encryption, authentication, limiting user access to the appropriate subset of the data, continuous monitoring and auditing to help detect potential threats and provide a record of critical events in case of a breach

·         It is a mysterious combination of RAM, CPU and read-write rates, but basically if you want to double the performance of your current database you just need to double the number of DTU’s for your database.

·         SQL DB can handle 6400 concurrent logins and 30000 concurrent sessions.
  • Global Distribution – distribute the application instantly; this is a distribution of resource partition across geographical regions.
  • Multi-model, multi-API support: This database engine is based on the atom-record-sequence (ARS) data model.
  • Horizontal scaling of storage and throughput. It is designed to manage elastically scaled throughput, based on the application traffic patterns across different geographical regions
  • Low latency-Microsoft assures end-to-end very low latency in the 99th percentile within the same Azure region.
  • Transparent multi-homing-it is a capability that supports an application in the unlikely event of regional failure or disaster. One of the best parts is dynamic association of “priority” to the regions associated with the Azure Cosmos DB database account.
  • Multiple, well-defined consistency models-Offers more granular options over the control that decides database performance, and consistency.
  • Schema-free: It automatically indexes all the data it ingests without requiring any schema or indexes.

For Updated Price Reference please check Azure Cosmos DB pricing and SQL Database pricing

Common Use of Azure CosmosDB

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Azure Cosmos DB is Microsoft’s globally-distributed, multi-model database service for managing data at planet-scale. It builds upon and extends the earlier Azure DocumentDB which was released in 2014. It is schema-less and generally classified as a NoSQL database.

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Before we start, let’s take a look at some quick features.

  • Global Distribution
    Established globally distributed database system driven by the cloud-computing power of Azure. Data can be automatically replicated in Azure data centers around the world.Or in other words, you can distribute your data to any number of Azure regions, with the click of a button. This enables you to put your data where your users are, ensuring the lowest possible latency to your customers.
  • Scalability
    Customers can independently scale storage and throughput.Easily scale database throughput at a per second granularity, and change it anytime you want. Scale storage size transparently and automatically to handle your size requirements now and forever.
  • Highly Responsive
    Cosmos DB guarantees end-to-end latency of reads under 10 ms and indexed writes fewer than 15 ms at the 99th percentile, within the same Azure region. The median latencies are significantly lower (less than 5 ms).
  • Multiple Data Models
    Customers can use key-value, graph, and document data without worrying about schema or index management.The atom-record-sequence (ARS) based data model that Azure Cosmos DB is built on natively supports multiple data models, including but not limited to document, graph, key-value, table, and columnar data models.

APIs for the following data models are supported with SDKs available in multiple languages,

  • DocumentDB API
  • MongoDB API
  • Table API
  • Graph (Gremlin) API

Five consistency levels

Defined consistency levels include strong, bounded staleness, consistent-prefix, session, and eventual.

Latency

Guaranteed less than 10-ms latencies on reads and less than 15-ms latencies on (indexed) writes at the 99th percentile.

Reliability

Offered service level agreements (SLAs) include 99.99% high availability with latency at the 99th percentile.

In Cosmos DB, SLA guarantee is very high, 99.9% for the following.

  • Availability assurance 99.9%
  • Throughput guarantee 99.9%
  • Latency guarantee 99.9% (99% is latency less than 10 ms )
  • Consistency assurance 100% of read requests guarantee consistency of the required consistency level.

Below are some points where customer can use Azure CosmosDB

IoT and telematics

IoT solutions require secure, bidirectional communication between devices, possibly numbering in the millions, and a solution back end. For example, a solution back end might use automated, predictive analytics to uncover insights from your device-to-cloud event stream. An IoT solution architecture that describes the common characteristics of an IoT solution you might deploy using Azure services.

Azure Cosmos DB

Microsoft Azure offers rich services that can be applied for IoT use cases including Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Event Hubs, Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Notification Hub, Azure Machine Learning, Azure HDInsight, and PowerBI. Distributed databases and open source analytics technologies are becoming an important part of many big data strategies. Attend this session to learn how Azure Cosmos DB and Azure HDInsight enable massive-scale ingestion of events and real-time queries for IoT scenarios

The business goals and technical challenges faced by real-world customers (like Toyota Service Connect), why they chose Azure Cosmos DB + HDInsight, and the patterns they used to deliver highly available, globally distributed experiences. In addition, data can further be refined and processed by connecting Azure Cosmos DB data to HDInsight for Pig, Hive, or Map/Reduce jobs. Refined data is then loaded back to Azure Cosmos DB for reporting.

Establish bi-directional communication with billions of IoT devices, Work with familiar platforms and protocols.

Add new IoT devices—and connect existing ones—using open-source device SDKs for multiple platforms, including Linux, Windows, and real-time operating systems. Use standard and custom protocols, including HTTP, Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) and MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT).  Manage your IoT devices at scale with device management

With new device management capabilities in IoT Hub administrators can remotely maintain, update and manage IoT devices at scale from the cloud. Save time and cost by removing the task of developing and maintaining a custom device management solution or spending resources traveling to maintain global assets.

Retail and marketing

Azure Marketing is one of the premier marketing and advertising firms in the whole world. Azure specializes in gaining a fast, measurable advantage for clients. they recently signed more major clients in the television entertainment industry! In addition to creating a positive image for clients, the key to success and growth is the ability to generate a greater market share for each and every client.

To deliver results to the clients, Catalog data usage scenarios involving storing and querying a set of attributes for entities such as people, places, and products. Some examples of catalog data are user accounts, product catalogs, IoT device registries, and bill of materials systems. Attributes for this data may vary and can change over time to fit application requirements. Microsoft Azure Data Catalog is a fully managed service that serves as a system of registration and system of discovery for enterprise data sources.

Azure Cosmos DB

Consider an example of a product catalog for an automotive parts supplier. Every part may have its own attributes in addition to the common attributes that all parts share. Furthermore, attributes for a specific part can change the following year when a new model is released. Azure Cosmos DB supports flexible schemas and hierarchical data, and thus it is well suited for storing product catalog data. Microsoft Azure Marketplace features data from a variety of sources, including demographic, environment, financial, retail and sports data. Many sources are free. You can get data feeds to use this data in a Data Model that you build in Excel and in the Power Pivot add-in.

Gamming

Reach your gamers wherever they are and build new user bases without any infrastructure constraints. Azure runs on Microsoft-managed datacenters across 26 regions—more countries and regions than AWS and Google Cloud combined.

Spend less time on development and testing and focus on getting your games to market faster than your competition, thanks to broad support for diverse technologies, including operating systems, programming languages, frameworks, tools, databases, and devices.

Use the game engine of your choice with Visual Studio for rapid game development. Both Unity and Unreal are deeply integrated with Visual Studio, allowing you to take advantage of powerful features, such as a rich debugger and extensive code editing while powering your games’ backend with Azure.

Whether you have an existing game backend infrastructure or are looking to build your system from scratch, Azure provides you with choice and flexibility. If you want to lift and shift your infrastructure to the cloud, use infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offerings like Machines and Virtual Machine Scale Sets. With “Platform as a Service (PaaS)” services like Azure Service Fabric and Azure App Service, focus on building your games and let Azure manage your infrastructure. Choose from a variety of storage options, from managed database services like Azure SQL Database and Azure Cosmos DB to MongoDB, Parse Server, and Cassandra on Azure Marketplace.

Azure Cosmos DB
Web and mobile applications

Azure Cosmos DB is commonly used within the web and mobile applications and is well suited for modeling social interactions, integrating with third-party services, and for building rich personalized experiences. The Cosmos DB SDKs can be used build rich iOS and Android applications using the popular Xamarin framework.

Social Applications

We use social networks to keep in touch with friends, colleagues, family, or sometimes to share our passion with people with common interests.

As engineers or developers, we might have wondered how these networks store and interconnect our data or might have even been tasked to create or architect a new social network for a specific niche market yourselves. That’s when the big question arises: How is all this data stored?

Let’s suppose that we are creating a new and shiny social network, where our users can post articles with related media like pictures, videos, or even music. Users can comment on posts and give points for ratings. There will be a feed of posts that users will see and be able to interact with on the main website landing page. This doesn’t sound really complex (at first), but for the sake of simplicity, let’s stop there (we could delve into custom user feeds affected by relationships, but it exceeds the goal of this article).

Azure Cosmos DB

Applications that integrate with third-party social networks must respond to changing schemas from these networks. As data is automatically indexed by default in Cosmos DB, data is ready to be queried at any time. Hence, these applications have the flexibility to retrieve projections as per their respective needs.

Many of the social applications run at global scale and can exhibit unpredictable usage patterns. Flexibility in scaling the data store is essential as the application layer scales to match usage demand. You can scale out by adding additional data partitions under a Cosmos DB account. In addition, you can also create additional Cosmos DB accounts across multiple regions.

Summery

In this article, we talked about use case of Azure CosmosDB. I hope you found this article informative.

Try Azure CosmosDB For Free

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As we know Azure Cosmos DB is the first globally distributed massively scalable, multi-model database service. This service is designed to allow customers to scalable horizontally scale both throughput and storage across multiple geographical regions. This service also provides a 99% percent guaranteed latency of 10 milliseconds or less, 99.99% high availability, five well-defined alignments to ensure an accurate compromise between performance, availability, and data integrity to developers.

Now Microsoft starts Try Azure Cosmos DB for free for developers with no Azure sign up required and at no charge for a limited time.

The main motive of this is for developers to evaluate Azure Cosmos DB, build and test their app against Azure Cosmos DB, do a hands-on-lab, a tutorial, create a demo or perform unit testing without incurring any costs. It allows all developer to easily experience the azure cosmos DB and what it offers, free of charge, and satisfy with our database service. You can access Azure cosmos DB on a fully working planet in less than a minute.

Try Cosmos DB Now

Try it out yourself; it will not take more than one minute.

  • In a few seconds, it will show a popup to be advised to prepare your new Azure cosmos DB account newly created, open it in the azure portal and try a quick start.Azure Cosmos DB
  • Click “Open in Azure Portal”, the browser will proceed to the newly created free Azure Cosmos DB account and a quick start page will open.Azure Cosmos DB
  • Follow the Quick Starts to get a running app connected to Azure Cosmos DB in less than 30 seconds or proceed to explore the service on your own.When in the portal, you will be reminded how long you have before your account expires.

    Azure Cosmos DB

You can extend your trial period for another 24 hours, register for a free trial (if you are using Azure for the first time), create a new Azure Cosmos DB account (if you already have an Azure subscription) can.

Azure Cosmos DB

With Try Azure Cosmos DB for free, you can create a container (a collection of documents, a table, or a graph) and globally-distribute it to up to 3 regions, and use any of the capabilities Azure Cosmos DB provides for 24 hours. Once the trial expires, you can always come back and create it all over again.

Play with Azure Cosmos DB

Azure cosmos DB makes the data available close to where users are, worldwide. It is a globally distributed, multi-model database service for building planet scale apps with ease using the API and data model of choices.
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Azure Cosmos DB is the database of the future – it is what we believe is the next big thing in the world of massively scalable databases!

Detail Of Azure Government Training Resources

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Today I was reading Steve Michelotti‘s article about government training and I tried to add some extra input  from my end.Nowadays, we can’t imagine our world without cloud computing. We use cloud computing daily if we use the Internet. Without it, there would be no Facebook, no Twitter, no Gmail. Basically, cloud computing means “a type of Internet-based computing,” where different services – such as servers, storage and applications – are delivered to an organization’s computers and devices through the internet.

Uses of cloud computing

Here are a few of the things we can do in the cloud.

  • Create new apps and services
  • Store, backup, and recover data
  • Host websites and blogs
  • Stream audio and video
  • Deliver software on demand
  • Analyze data for patterns and make predictions

Benefits of cloud computing

  • Adaptable: Cloud computing allows for adaptable programs and applications that are customizable, while allowing the owners control over the core code.
  • Multi-tenancy: Cloud software offers an opportunity to provide personalized applications and portals to several customers or tenants.
  • Reliable: Because it is hosted by a third party, businesses and other users have greater assurance of reliability, and when there are problems, easy access to customer support.
  • Scalability: With the Internet of Things, it is essential that software functions across every device and integrates with other applications. Cloud applications can provide this.
  • Secure: Cloud computing can also guarantee a more secure environment, thanks to increased resources for security and centralization of data.

Types of cloud services

  • Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) – A computer infrastructure, such as virtualization, being delivered as a service. IaaS is popular in the data center where software and servers are purchased as a fully outsourced service and usually billed on usage and how much of the resource is used
  • Platform as a Service (PaaS) – A computing platform being delivered as a service. Here, the platform is outsourced in place of a company or data center purchasing and managing their own hardware and software layers.
  • Software as a service (SaaS) – A method for delivering software applications over the Internet, on demand and typically on a subscription basis. With SaaS, cloud providers host and manage the software application and underlying infrastructure and handle any maintenance, like software upgrades and security patching.

Microsoft and cloud computing

Microsoft is a leading global provider of cloud computing services for businesses of all sizes.

  • Deploy anywhere with your choice of tools: connecting cloud and on-premises with consistent hybrid cloud capabilities and using open source technologies—for maximum portability and value from your existing investments.
  • Protect your business with the most trusted cloud: Ninety percent of Fortune 500 companies trust the Microsoft Cloud and so can you. Azure helps protect your assets through a rigorous methodology and focus on security, privacy, compliance and transparency.
  • Accelerate app innovation: Build simple to complex projects within a consistent portal experience using deeply-integrated cloud services, so you can rapidly develop, deploy and manage your apps.
  • Power decisions and apps with insights: Uncover business insights with advanced analytics and data services for both traditional and new data sources. Detect anomalies, predict behaviors and recommend actions for your business.

If you have the desire to learn more about cloud computing, check out these training resources,

  • Azure Government Video Library

    Azure Government Training Resources

    This video library contains many helpful videos to get you up and running with Azure Government. This video library will contain many helpful videos to get you up and running with Azure Government. Currently. This video library is the place to go to catch up on all the content you may have missed. The searchable library will also feature short screen cast videos to help developers get comfortable with Azure Government quickly and easily

  • Pluralsight

    Azure Government Training Resources

    On-demand technology learning platform. A variety of video training courses for software developers, IT administrators, and creative professionals through its website. Excellent quality learning, constantly kept up-to-date with new and refreshed courses, excellent user interface. Great added functionality and reporting to help develop and monitor your skills.

  • Azure.com Training

    Azure Government Training Resources

    Landing page of training resources for Azure. Follow a guided path to build practical job skills you can start using right away. Learning paths include beginner, intermediate and advanced level courses with multiple learning options. Build expertise and advance your career with Azure certification. Whether you are new to Azure or already a cloud professional, level up your skills and gain opportunities for career advancement.

  • Microsoft Virtual Academy

    Azure Government Training Resources

    Free online training on the latest Microsoft technologies. With hundreds of IT training courses to choose from, Microsoft Virtual Academy makes it easy to find what you need- totally free of charge! Microsoft Virtual Academy provides free online training by world-class experts to help you build your technical skills and advance your career. Make it your destination of choice to get started on the latest Microsoft technologies and join this vibrant community.

  • Channel 9

    Azure Government Training Resources

    Platform for developers and tech enthusiasts within Microsoft who operate a site devoted to conversations. Channel 9 is a Microsoft community site for Microsoft customers created in 2004. It hosts video channels, podcasts, screencasts and interviews. This made it an inexpensive alternative to Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference, then the main public platform where customers and outside developers could speak to Microsoft employees without the intervention of the company’s PR department. The Channel 9 team has produced interviews with Bill Gates, Erik Meijer and Mark Russinovich.

  • Lynda

    Azure Government Training Resources

    Subscription-based online learning platform Lynda.com is a leading online learning platform that helps anyone learn business, software, technology, and creative skills to achieve personal and professional goals. Through individual, corporate, academic, and government subscriptions, members have access to Lynda.com video library of engaging, top-quality courses taught by recognized industry experts.

  • Open edX
    Azure Government Training Resources
    Free massive open online courses. Open edX is the open source platform that powers edX courses.  Through our commitment to the open source vision, edX code is freely available to the community. Institutions can host their own instances of Open edX and offer their own classes. Educators can extend the platform to build learning tools that precisely meet their needs. And developers can contribute new features to the Open edX platform. The Open edX platform is a free–and open source–course management system (CMS) that was originally developed by edX. The Open edX platform is used all over the world to host Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as well as smaller classes and training modules.

Azure Gov DC User Community

Join this community of industry and government professionals interested in sharing best practices for driving cloud innovation in government. Visit the below sites to join our community and learn more!

  • Azure Gov DC Meetup
    Join us for monthly Meetup events in Washington, DC. This is a group for anyone modernizing government IT. More specifically, this group is for anyone interested in Cloud Computing, Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Open Source, Cyber Security, Government Security & Compliance as well as Azure for Government. We will invite start-ups, partners, practitioners, government innovators, MVPs and Microsoft product engineers alike to share their latest and greatest in government IT modernization. Bringing real world lessons directly to our DC Government Innovator community.

Additional resources

I will keep posting more about Azure from my end, keep reading. Happy Azuring!!!

What Is New In Azure Portal Updates

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In this article I am talking about this video, in which Leon Welicki and Scott Hanselman introduce us to updates from Azure Portal.

In this section, they show how we can preview new portal features, including new usability features, keyboard shortcuts, improve filtering, bulk actions, accessibility, portal-wide search, dashboard customization, minimize command to all blades, Browser Improvements, only vertical scroll in maximized blades, simpler default start board, disable animations, more resources implementing the Essentials pattern, Audit logs, Marketplace improvements, and more.

All you need to open is https://preview.portal.azure.com ; this is the new preview of Azure portal.

Now let’s discuss some features in brief,

Availability of Search

It’s the same as Visual Studio as far as search tools, options and so on. In previous portals, we would wait for a full data load and then access what we wanted to access. Now this search option will be helpful for not loading full data at once and  we can search for what we want and then easily access it.

  • Speed and scalability are improved also.
  • The keyboard shortcut
    • Actions
      • CTRL+/ Search blade menu items
      • ALT+SHIFT+Up Move favorites up
      • ALT+SHIFT+Down Move favorites down
      • G+/ Search resources (global)
      • G+N Create a new resource
      • G+B Open the ‘More services’ pane
    • Navigation
      • G+, Move focus to command bar
      • G+. Toggle focus between top bar and side bar
    • Go to
      • G+D Go to dashboard
      • G+A Go to all resources
      • G+R Go to resource groups
      • G+number Open the item pinned to the favorites bar at this position
  • If you click on search box you will display the list of some recently used resources.
  • Subscriptions are selected one by one, so if we type only 3-4 subscriptions it will automatically detect those kinds of subscriptions And if you click on one of them then you will switch to it directly.
  • Using Filters

    In the All resources screen, we will filter out many sections

    These filters are: filter by Name, by Location, By group, by type, by subscriptions.

    You can Select Multiple resources at a time and delete all at a time.

    In the same way you can also select multiple Virtual machines and stop all of them at once.

    Custom Templates
    We can also search templates and create our own custom template by filtering which type we use and edit. In the Search Box, type Custom Template and then click on Deploy a custom template.

    If we Click Edit Template then we can also customize

    We can also add resources here if we click add new resource. So, we can move manually or programmatically to change their variables’ parameter name. When we click save it will open a new tab. This tab automatically gets resource name and subscription name. In every resource and resource group of Azure we can see the automation script option on the left side. In this we will get every resource in this folder. Not only resource but also parameter, CLI, CLI2.0, PowerShell, NET, RUBY. In this way people, people can build their own Azure UI.

    Multiple Dashboards

    When you navigate to a resource, you see a list of settings and properties on the LEFT side of the screen, and the RIGHT side of the screen simply updates with the new content – this is a good change, because previously, every time you changed context, the screen would redraw. For example, clicking on Overview from the current view would scroll to the left, and then to the right as the screen moves. This wasn’t particularly reliable either. The new method is much easier to manage.

    We can see multiple dashboards and their performance at once.

    • Browse tile is the most clicked tile, so we put it in a prime location
    • Many of you told us that default size of the map was too big and takes too much space, so we made it smaller. You can still make it bigger again by right clicking on the map and selecting “Customize”
    • Billing tile was moved to a more central location
    • As you know, the start board is a space that is intended to be yours. You can customize it (move, resize, remove, or add new parts) to bring the resources and information that you care about front and center!

    Improved Browser Interactions

    This feature can now navigate back to the startboard with a back button click in your browser, and a forward click takes you to previous active journal. This is all done by adding partial information into your browser URL which basically refers to the set of blades in your active navigation path.Do not forget to share your comments and feedback, you can also reach me at Twitter. Happy Azuring