Last month at its Build 2021 conference, Microsoft announced PyTorch Enterprise for Azure, updates to the Azure Bot Service, a new Azure Metrics Service Advisor, and plenty more. With regards to Arc services in the cloud space, a new variant of the Azure Stack HCI was released in December as a way to help customers view and manage virtual desktops and databases through the Azure Portal.
Today, Microsoft has announced that Azure SQL enabled by Azure Arc will be hitting general availability on July 30, becoming the first of the two Arc-enabled services to be going GA. The service's general-purpose tier will be available initially, providing database-as-a-service functionality on various infrastructures. Furthermore, in support of Arc-enabled data services going GA, Microsoft has also revealed a trusted network of new partners.
Extending Azure services to SQL Server instances in a variety of environments including on-the-edge, multicloud, and customers' datacenters, Azure SQL enabled by Arc has been in public preview for a while. The following capabilities will be provided upon deployment of Azure SQL databases:
- Stay current with automated updates and deploy evergreen feature and security updates to on-prem databases with no end-of-support.
- Automate routine database administrator (DBA) tasks at scale with built-in management capabilities including high availability, backup, and restore.
- Optimize data workload performance by bringing cloud elasticity on-premises for existing infrastructure, using only the resources needed to dynamically scale up, down, without application downtime.
- Access Azure industry-leading security and governance capabilities for your on-premises data workloads using to protect your data.
Opt-in options for additonal Arc-enabled services, such as PostgreSQL, will also be offered to customers, allowing their integration to be a seamless process once they become generally available as well. Microsoft has also assured users that new capabilities will be introduced "on a continuous basis". Those who want to get a headstart can check out preview version of the service here, before it becomes generally available in a month.
