New Optimized OLTP and Data Warehousing SQL Server Images on Azure

Microsoft Azure continues to offer customers more reasons why  Azure Virtual Machines are an ideal place to develop, test and run your SQL Server applications.  This promise is further enhanced with the release of new workload optimized images for SQL Server that provide greater performance and simplified setup when it comes to running data warehousing and OLTP workloads in Azure.   There are 4 new SQL Server images being released with benefits outlined below:

  • New Data Warehousing Optimized Image for both SQL Server 2014 and SQL Server 2012  – These images simplify the setup process for customers by adding more automation. For example, the automation of attaching a disk to the SQL Server VM running a data warehouse workload. 
  • New OLTP Optimized Image for both SQL Server 2014 and SQL Server 2012 – These new images allow a customer to get better performance for an OLTP high IO intensive workload.   One of the key improvements in this tuned image is the ability to attach many disks to the SQL Server VM.  This is critical in terms of improving IO in an OLTP workload as the number of disk has a direct impact on OLTP performance.  In addition, new Windows features are also utilized like Storage Pools for multi-disk environment to improve IO performance and latency.

The image below highlights the new optimized images being available on Microsoft Azure.

Be sure to read the blog post “New VM Images Optimized for Transactional and DW Workloads in Azure VM Gallery” for a more detailed technical overview.

Continue learning more about Microsoft Azure, Virtual Machines, and how our customers are reaping the benefits of these technologies:

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Read how Amway and Lufthansa leveraged Microsoft SQL Server 2014 and Windows Azure.