Microsoft Azure had announced many new updates over the past week, out of which there were some important changes in SQL Server marketplace images and in Azure Bastion. We will see the changes and how they can help your organization in the Cloud Journey.
SQL Server Images
Microsoft Azure had recently made changes to the way it handles SQL Server Images in the Azure marketplace. Until now, Azure Marketplace images came with prebuilt SQL Server default configurations requiring the Azure users to configure the Azure SQL instance after the deployment of the image.
Now Microsoft is offering a SQL Server setup-like experience where the configuration of the instance is done during deployment of the image. Microsoft had included the following configuration options while setting up SQL Server through an Azure Marketplace image:
- Move system databases to a data disk
- Configure tempdb data and log files
- Ability to change collation from default collation
- Configure Maximum Degree of Parallelism
- Configure Min Server Memory and Max Server Memory
- Configure Optimize for Adhoc Workloads
SQL Server BYOL is still not available for the SQL on Linux VM Images. The SQL BYOL images are currently only available for Windows virtual machines. However, you can manually install SQL Server on a Linux-only VM.
With the current change, the controls can be made when the VM Image is been deployed and for Azure DBA experts this will help them to do the changes during deployment so that the optimization or Server memory finetuning is not missed after the VM is deployed.
Azure Bastion
Enabling RDP or SSH access over a public IP VM in Azure is not a best practice, Azure Bastion is a service you deploy that lets you connect to a virtual machine using your browser and the Azure portal. The Azure Bastion service is a managed PaaS service that you provision inside your virtual network.
This Azure service helps the organizations who are working remotely by giving Azure Admins access to the Azure VM environment in a secure way, Because Azure Bastion is at the perimeter of your Azure virtual network, you don’t need to worry about hardening each of the virtual machines in your virtual network. The Azure Bastion PaaS platform protects against zero-day exploits by keeping the Azure Bastion hardened and always up to date.
The new updates / Changes in Azure Bastion was announced last week,
With the new Azure Bastion native client support in public preview and included in Standard SKU, you can now:
- Use either SSH or RDP to upload files to a VM from your local computer.
- Use RDP to download files from a VM to your local computer.
In Intertec we have a dedicated team of Cloud experts who focus on helping customers in their cloud journey, get in touch with us to explore more about our Azure Consulting, professional services, and Azure managed services.