Designing an Azure Data Implementation

Microsoft Azure offers services for a wide variety of data-related needs, including ones you would expect like file storage and relational databases, but also more specialized services, such as for text searching and time-series data. In this Lesson, you will learn how to design a data implementation using the appropriate Azure services. Two services that are especially important are Azure SQL Database and Azure Cosmos DB.

Azure SQL Database is a managed service for hosting SQL Server databases (although it’s not 100% compatible with SQL Server). Even though Microsoft takes care of the maintenance, you still need to choose the right options to scale it and make sure it can survive failures.

Azure Cosmos DB is the first multi-model database that’s offered as a global cloud service. It can store and query documents, NoSQL tables, graphs, and columnar data. To get the most out of Cosmos DB, you need to know which consistency and performance guarantees to choose, as well as how to make it globally reliable.

Learning Objectives

• Identify the most appropriate Azure services for various data-related needs

• Design an Azure SQL Database implementation for scalability, availability, and disaster recovery

• Design an Azure Cosmos DB implementation for cost, performance, consistency, availability, and business continuity

Intended Audience

• People who want to become Azure cloud architects

• People preparing for a Microsoft Azure certification exam

Prerequisites

• General knowledge of IT architecture, especially databases