Maximizing SQL Server Savings: Leveraging Azure Hybrid Benefit for Enterprise Licenses
Customers that have migrated SQL workloads from Private Cloud environments to Azure Cloud, will be aware of the opportunity to make significant savings in the licensing of SQL Server Enterprise. As you may or may not be aware, one of the benefits of Azure Hybrid Benefit with regards to SQL Server Enterprise is the ability to use licenses you’ve owned for your non-public cloud deployments in the public cloud (BYOL). For SQL Server Enterprise there is an added benefit of being able to possibly ‘exchange’ one on-premises core license for four vCPU licenses in Azure Cloud. It’s important to note that this benefit as with all AHB is only applicable to licenses with Software Assurance and in this instance only for core-based licenses.
This conversion is available on the below Azure SQL Offerings;
1. Azure SQL Database
2. Azure SQL Managed Instance
3. Azure SQL
4. Azure VM
In this post, I’ll be focusing on SQL Server Enterprise core licenses and outlining what Business Critical means. Understanding this allows us to determine if we can avail of the benefits of General Purpose and Hyperscale SKUs. Essentially, reducing the license requirement and in turn, saving up to 75% of SQL Server Enterprise costs potentially makes it cheaper or at least competitive to purchase SQL Server Enterprise core licenses instead of SQL Server Standard core licenses. So what is Business Criticality and should you define your workloads as business critical or would they be better classified under the General Purpose or Hyperscale SKUs?
General Purpose: As the name implies is the default service tier in Azure for most generic workloads. If you need a fully managed database engine with a default SLA and storage latency between 5 ms and 10 ms, the General Purpose tier is the option for you[1]. The architectural model for the General Purpose service tier is based on a separation of compute and storage. This architectural model relies on the high availability and reliability of Azure Blob storage that transparently replicates database files and guarantees no data loss if underlying infrastructure failure happens[2].
The General Purpose Service tier does not offer the same experience as the Business Critical Service Tier or the Hyperscale Service Tier. So the question is why choose the Business Critical Service Tier over the Hyperscale Service Tier? Below is a comparison.
HyperScale v Business Critical Service Tier:
- I/O, Consistency, and Uptime Guarantees: The real difference between Hyperscale and Business Critical is the I/O, consistency, and uptime guarantees. While Hyperscale may offer the same feature set, it does not have the same Service Level Agreements (SLAs) as Business Critical[3].
- Performance and Scalability: Hyperscale is designed for applications that require high performance, rapid scaling, and large storage capacity (up to 100 TB). It provides fast database backups and restores, higher log throughput, and read scale-out using one or more read-only replicas[4]. On the other hand, Business Critical is optimised for workloads that require fast I/O and high availability[5].
In essence, Hyperscale is more suitable for:
- Customers who are just starting out small with intentions of growing and running large mission-critical workloads, or
- Customers who are migrating to the cloud to modernise their applications or customers who are already using other service tiers in Azure SSL Database.
Whereas, Business Critical is built for high demand and workloads with requirements for fast I/O and high availability. The real difference between Hyperscale and Business Critical is the I/O, consistency and uptime guarantees. Hyperscale may have the same feature offerings but does not have the same SLAs as Business Critical.
The choice between these 2 options should not be made solely because of cost but rather on a case-by-case, workload-by-workload basis as there are significant cost differences and SLAs.
As Microsoft license experts, we can help you demystify these and any other product changes and clarify what this could mean for your license position. If you have any questions relating to this or any other Microsoft licensing matter, please go to our website or contact us.
For more, check out our recent webinar.
[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/database/service-tiers-sql-database-vcore?view=azuresql
[2] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/database/service-tiers-sql-database-vcore?view=azuresql
[3] Azure SQL Database: Hyperscale vs Business Critical — Microsoft Q&A
[4] Azure SQL Database Hyperscale FAQ — Azure SQL | Microsoft Learn
[5] Azure SQL Database: Hyperscale vs Business Critical — Microsoft Q&A
About the Author:
Karl is a Principal Licensing Consultant at Version 1, providing global Microsoft license expertise to organisations and ensuring customers get the best value from their Microsoft assets.
