The world of database management has undergone a significant change as a result of multinational corporations switching to cloud-managed databases. However, it can be difficult to meet the needs of the modern world, particularly for on-premise deployments. In contrast, managed cloud databases are relational database services that are scalable and created for the cloud.

Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS are both great choices for deploying MS SQL Server databases. The dawn of a new era has indeed been heralded by these databases. Prior to selecting an Amazon AWS or Azure migration, it is crucial to compare features, benefits, and limitations. In this article, we’ll examine these well-known databases and offer advice on which one would be best for your company.

Which one is Better?

Cloud computing enables businesses to increase innovation, reduce capital expenditures, increase scalability, and improve teamwork. Naturally, businesses that are unprepared for these changes risk falling behind. The most reputable cloud competitors competing for a bigger share of the cloud pie are AWS and Azure.

Starting with how they present their SQL Server database services, the two cloud service goliaths have a glaringly different service philosophy. Microsoft makes use of the binaries from SQL Server 2019, the most recent iteration. It guarantees that your application always uses the most recent binaries. In contrast, Amazon provides a versioning model that is largely fixed and allows you to select the version you want to use. The following are the main distinctions between Azure SQL and Amazon RDS:

Platform

The cloud-based database products from Microsoft are created with the cloud in mind. For instance, Azure SQL is a service that runs natively on the Microsoft cloud infrastructure.

Although it does not run natively on the cloud platform, Amazon RDS is cloud-capable. Therefore, the majority of MySQL applications should function normally in Amazon RDS.

Performance

As Azure SQL is tier-based, each level is divided into performance tiers ranked by Microsoft’s Database Transaction Units and tailored to a variety of workloads. In order to ensure maximum utilization, Microsoft customers can address workload fluctuations through hosted databases.

Database instances are allotted in Amazon RDS to determine resource allocation. To easily distinguish costs, you must pay for computing and storage separately. Furthermore, Amazon RDS improves query performance.

Features

A versatile, reliable, user-friendly, and stable solution is Amazon RDS. Users can choose as many tools, zones, regions, and replicas as necessary. Users prefer Microsoft products’ enhanced GUI and better integration. However, they think Microsoft can make a lot of security features better.

Users of Microsoft Azure appreciate how easily the platform integrates with on-premises SQL Server, the darknet stack, and table groups. The solution provides simple firewall settings and a very user-friendly interface. Additionally, there are a lot of on-premises features that the cloud might not provide.

Target Market

Microsoft Azure primarily targets enterprise apps with databases that are 5 GB or smaller. Although Azure SQL appears to be limited, there are more details than just the targeted clients.

Amazon RDS, on the other hand, targets a wider user base and provides a high level of flexibility. Per database instance, up to 1 TB of storage is permitted.

Deployment

The biggest difference between Azure SQL and Amazon RDS occurs at this point. Database servers for Azure SQL are not virtual. Instead, they are logical containers that are tailored to the needs of the customer. Additionally, Azure SQL is multi-tenant and does not support specific server-level customization.

Azure focuses on cloud performance rather than hardware in order to fully utilize the intended benefits of cloud computing. Microsoft’s emphasis on only charging for what a customer needs is a good thing. Amazon RDS, on the other hand, offers relational database services using EC2 instances.

RDS is able to allocate resources to databases while provisioning storage space separately thanks to this design. RDS’s factor costs are different from Azure SQL’s because storage is charged separately from computing. The RDS standard level offers storage of up to 6 TB.

Cost

When compared to Amazon RDS, Azure SQL is much more affordable because its databases can be automatically replicated across a variety of systems, providing read scale-outs and a transparent fail-over mechanism in case of hardware failure. However, Amazon RDS has turned off replication on all of its MySQL instances.

As a result, SQL Azure doesn’t provide a substitute for Amazon RDS’s distinctive on-demand snapshot-based backup approach. Instead, when a disaster strikes, data in SQL Azure is automatically backed up and restored. Once more, the user is unaware of this, which contributes to the feature’s high availability.

Scaling

With a storage limit of just 10 GB per database, Microsoft Azure SQL is both highly scalable and cost-effective. As a result, it eliminates the chance that a single overburdened database server will cause performance problems. Additionally, Microsoft’s concept of the shared database has improved performance and scalability with the most recent addition of elastic pools.

Computing and storage fees are charged separately by Amazon RDS. As a result, expanding a database’s size on the Amazon platform is simple. Additionally, the growth of an RDS single database is made simple by Aurora’s ease of automatic scalability as a database product.

Additionally, Amazon RDS supports read-only horizontal scaling, which enables you to add replicas to improve query performance. The Elastic Database tools, on the other hand, are used by Azure SQL to orchestrate a sharding strategy.

Wrapping Up

Azure SQL and Amazon RDS are in fierce competition to provide the best customer experience. A more server-oriented model with robust backward compatibility for apps is offered by Amazon RDS. How you choose between Amazon RDS and Azure SQL largely depends on the kind of technology you already employ. On the other hand, Amazon RDS works best for you if you have a LAMP stack.

Consider the benefits of moving your database to the cloud if you’re still unsure which option to choose. But once more, it depends on your budget, flexibility, and tech preferences. So, when selecting a database system for your business, keep these things in mind.