Azure DB Pricing with Elastic Pools - azure

I'm trying to get an idea of how much databases will cost in Azure.
I've created an Elastic database pool and it says the monthly cost would be R2580 (South African Rands) for up to 200 databases & 100 eDTUs.
If I go to any of the databases I've created in the pool, and click on the Pricing Tier, it says it's a Basic database with 5 DTUs and estimated cost of R85 per month.
So what am I going to pay? R2580 per month, or (R85 x n databases) per month, or both?
Presumably, it's R2580 per month. If that's right, then you have to have at about 30 databases before the prices even out, and even then you're probably better off with the stand-alone databases as you'd have 150 DTUs vs 100 eDTUs.
Is my logic correct?

So what am I going to pay? R2580 per month, or (R85 x n databases) per
month, or both?
You're going to pay R2580 / month as all the databases are part of an elastic database pool.
Presumably, it's R2580 per month. If that's right, then you have to
have at about 30 databases before the prices even out, and even then
you're probably better off with the stand-alone databases as you'd
have 150 DTUs vs 100 eDTUs.
You're right again. Elastic Database Pools serve a different use cases and may not be a right solution in every scenario. Typically Elastic Database Pools become useful if you have a multi-tenant SaaS application where each tenant gets a different database and there's a varied consumption pattern for each tenant. With individual databases, you would be capped at the DTU limit of that database. With Elastic Database Pools, your tenants can share the eDTU of that pool and can occasionally go beyond the DTU for that of an individual database.
You may find this link helpful in understanding when it makes sense to use Elastic Database Pool: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/documentation/articles/sql-database-elastic-pool-guidance/.

Related

Find azure sql database backup size

Is there a way to find the size of a database backup inside azure elastic pool ?
I need it to help me find the price of each database inside the elastic pool using azure calculator.
I don't think there is a way you can do that.
To see how much I spend per database I usually go into SQL Databases > Compute + Storage, but as you can see, when the database is inside an Elastic Pool you cannot see the price:
You can see the total price of the whole pool but not of one database.
A better approach is to go to Elastic Pool > Overview > databases, and have an overview of the consumption of each database.
Now try to see what the price of the each core and each Gb.
Try to create a rule that share the cost of the Elastic Pool per number of Avg CPU, Peak CPU, Data space used

How to move from DTU to vCore in Azure SQL Database

At present we have 3 (Dev, QA & Prod) stages in our azure resources. All the three are using SQL Database 'Standard S6: 400 DTUs'. Because of Dev and QA SQL Database our monthly cost is going more than 700 euro's. I am planning to move from DTU to vCore serverless. Below are my queries,
Just going into portal -> Compute and storage -> and changing from DTU to vCore Serverless is the right process?
Do i need to take any other things before doing this operation?
Does my existing Azure SQL DB is going to get affected by this operation?
If things are not fine as per my requirement same way can i come back to DTU mode.
Thanks in advance.
You can have a look at this MS doc for details: Migrate Azure SQL Database from the DTU-based model to the vCore-based model
Just going into portal -> Compute and storage -> and changing from
DTU to vCore Serverless is the right process?
Yes! just change to required option from dropdown and click on Apply.
Migrating a database from the DTU-based purchasing model to the
vCore-based purchasing model is similar to scaling between service
objectives in the Basic, Standard, and Premium service tiers, with
similar duration and a minimal downtime at the end of the migration
process.
Do i need to take any other things before doing this operation?
Some hardware generations may not be available in every region. Check availability under Hardware generations for SQL
Database.
In the vCore model, the supported maximum database size may differ depending on hardware generation. For large databases, check supported
maximum sizes in the vCore model for single
databases
and elastic
pools.
If you have geo-replicated databases, during migration, you don't have
to stop geo-replication, but you must upgrade the secondary database
first, and then upgrade the primary. When downgrading, reverse the
order Also go through the doc once.
Does my existing Azure SQL DB is going to get affected by this
operation?
You can copy any database with a DTU-based compute size to a database
with a vCore-based compute size without restrictions or special
sequencing as long as the target compute size supports the maximum
database size of the source database. Database copy creates a
transactionally consistent snapshot of the data as of a point in time
after the copy operation starts. It doesn't synchronize data between
the source and the target after that point in time.
If things are not fine as per my requirement same way can i come
back to DTU mode.
A database migrated to the vCore-based purchasing model can be
migrated back to the DTU-based purchasing model at any time in the
same fashion, with the exception of databases migrated to the
Hyperscale service tier.

Does Azure elastic DB charge per developer?

So I've been getting my feet wet in Azure SQL databases, and one of the question that I can't quite figure out is whether Azure charges per SQL developer on top of the database costs. If there's a team of 5 DB administrators, are they all allowed to build tables/extract data as long as the SQL database pool is being paid for?
It's just confusing because the price is a lot lower than what I'd expect, and I want to make sure I'm not missing any gotcha's that could multiply the cost. How is it possible it's only $606/month for 400 databases with 1TB of total storage?? Am I missing something super obvious??
Seems like we can just add DBA groups to a DB resource group
Pricing calculator for an elastic SQL database pool for 1TB for $606
Also... some additional assumptions and questions (sorry):
-Azure DB bills ONLY on the transactions and storage used in the database
-Elastic pool DB allows for hundreds of DBs to be created for near-zero cost, so does that include backup DBs (Proof of concept/Test/Support DBs)?
How is it possible it's only $606/month for 400 databases with 1TB of total storage??
Under the vCore pricing model that will buy you only a few cores, and a limited amount of RAM. See Resource limits for elastic pools using the vCore-based purchasing model limits for the details. So your 400 databases are sharing a small pool of resources. You may need to scale up the pool based on your workload.
In the General Purpose tier your database files are stored on Azure premium storage, and 1TB of Premium SSD storage costs only $135/month.
Azure DB bills ONLY on the transactions and storage used in the database
Under DTU and VCore models there is no charge for transactions. You've paid for the capacity and may do what you want. Backup storage is extra. See the pricing calculator for details. There are no "charges per SQL developer on top of the database costs".
The price of an elastic pool is based on the number of eDTUs of the pool, if you choose the DTU pricing model. The price of an elastic pool is independent of the number and utilization of the elastic databases within it, the number of transactions, the storage consumed and is also independent of the developers or users using those databases.
If you choose the vCore pricing model, pricing is based on the number of virtual cores, the compute generation you choose (Gen4/Gen5), licensing cost and the storage used by the databases and backups. You can save money if you apply for the Azure Hybrid Benefit or apply to reserve licensing. Again pricing is independent of the number of databases, number of transactions or users using it.

Azure SQL database and pool usage. When to use database pool

Hello I have 14 Databases for Azure SQL with DTU SO, S1 and S4 (prod)
So I am paying for some unused or not frequently used databases.
10 databases for Dev and test. 2 for production.
So I saw one post for Azure elastic pool. It was mentioned with Azure elastic pool. Can somebody suggest which kind database should I put in elastic pool and tips for cost saving.
Also I have Azure storage account (classic). How should I take its backup weekly. Is it possible.
Help and tips will be appreciated.
Thanks
Regards
KP
To keep it simple, Elastic pool will give you number of dtu's which can be used/distributed around number of databases you have as per their need.
So currently if you have 14 databases in S1 tier then you are have 14*50 =700 dtu's , if some databases are not in use, it's possible the dtu's are greatly underutilized.
In this case if You opt for Elastic pool with 50 dtu's then it will distribute among 14 databases , and as per need they will be used. which means you will save more and balance resources.
I have not verified all the numbers I have mentioned, but that's the principle idea.
I will just add to others answers and comments. For backups take in consideration you have Azure automated backups that provides backups with 7-35 days of retention period. Additionally you can use Azure Long-Term Backup Retention which can store backups with a retention period of 10 years.
About choosing the correct pool size to save money one of the documents shared by Nick above states the following: "SQL Database automatically evaluates the historical resource usage of databases in an existing SQL Database server and recommends the appropriate pool configuration in the Azure portal. In addition to the recommendations, a built-in experience estimates the eDTU usage for a custom group of databases on the server. This enables you to do a "what-if" analysis by interactively adding databases to the pool and removing them to get resource usage analysis and sizing advice before committing your changes".
Additionally, "After adding databases to the pool, recommendations are dynamically generated based on the historical usage of the databases you have selected. These recommendations are shown in the eDTU and GB usage chart and in a recommendation banner at the top of the Configure pool page. These recommendations are intended to assist you in creating an elastic pool optimized for your specific databases".

Microsoft Azure compared to "regular" webhosting

i have an idea of putting my blog on to Azure instead of a regular webhosting company.
The only thing i cannot figure out is if that will be cheaper or not. The good part is the getting-knowledge of Azure but on the other hand it is my personal blog and i really don't wanna spend to much money on it.
So do you have any idea of how the pricing works? I saw some calculator but didn't manage to understand the numbers.
Thanks in advance
You'd have to have a significantly-active blog to justify the costs of Azure. Aside from keeping a web role up and running (and just one instance chews up almost $90 monthly, as ZippyV stated), you'll also have to pay for data.
You do NOT need to invest in SQL Azure though. There's Azure table storage which is much better suited for your blog. It has a table structure, you can define entities (e.g. classes, maybe a BlogEntryClass) that are stored, and the storage costs will run you significantly less than SQL Azure (only $0.15 per GB per month, so your storage costs will likely remain well under a dollar a month for a blog, a small fraction of the cost of SQL Azure).
You'll also pay for bandwidth ($0.15 outbound per GB).
If this is a learning exercise, it's a great investment, but if you have an MSDN Premium account, you can host your blog there - you get 750 compute-hours monthly (enough to run a single role instance 24x7), 10GB table storage, and 14GB monthly outbound data.
Classic webhosting will be a lot cheaper for you. In Azure you need to pay for at least 1 instance (webserver) to run per hour. At then end of the month you will have to pay about 89$ if I remember correctly and that's without SQL Server.
If you want to learn more on how to develop for Azure you can download the SDK and run your project locally. You don't need to pay for it.
EDIT: you can find the pricing here. If you want to add SQL server you pay a minimum of 100$ a month.

Resources