Azure VMs provide a way to move your on-premises SQL Server workloads and applications to the Cloud.
Scenarios
There are many reasons that you might choose to host your data in Azure. If your application is moving to Azure, it improves performance to also move the data. But there are other benefits. You automatically have access to multiple data centers for a global presence and disaster recovery. The data is also highly secured and durable.
SQL Server running on Azure VMs is one option for storing your relational data in Azure. It is good choice for several scenarios. For example, you might want to configure the Azure VM as similarly as possible to an on-premises SQL Server machine. Or you might want to run additional applications and services on the same database server. There are two main resources that can help you think through even more scenarios and considerations:
- SQL Server on Azure virtual machines provides an overview of the best scenarios for using SQL Server on Azure VMs.
- Choose a cloud SQL Server option: Azure SQL (PaaS) Database or SQL Server on Azure VMs (IaaS) provides a detailed comparison between SQL Database and SQL Server running on a VM.