Resource Management on Windows Azure SQL Database

Most of you might know that Microsoft’s cloud database engine, SQL Database, implements throttling in order to avoid a rouge or poorly coded application from affecting performance of other applications that might be sharing the same cloud infrastructure.

Throttling is good because it promotes writing optimize code but it also helps to know the thresholds that define the size of the sandbox that the applications must remain in before the throttling kicks-in. I could not find concrete throttling thresholds and solid guidance until recently.

Microsoft just published some material on this topic; it covers not only the concepts (throttling, governance, etc.) involved in the resource management but also concrete throttling thresholds, best practices and code example. Check it out @ Resource Management in Windows Azure SQL Database

SQL Database Premium Edition

Recently Microsoft announced Premium Edition of SQL Database. In simple words, it allows you to reserve the capacity so that it is not shared with other tenants! Similar to having your dedicated SQL infrastructure minus the maintenance overhead that comes with it.

Caution – This could be a double-edge sword though. I believe that auto-throttling in cloud environments helps promote good architecture and coding practices, hence having a dedicated environment with elevated limits may be seen by some as a solution to bad architecture and coding problems; instead of fixing the code, they might be inclined to throw more capacity at it. Be careful!