Re: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?

[Davy Jones]

That sounds like the app that I'm fighting with each day. 

I wish they would give us the time to sort it out and migrate to azure, perhaps 
then I would be able to work from home more often.

Davy

Sent from my iPhone

> On 31 Jan 2017, at 05:24, Greg Low (罗格雷格博士)  wrote:
> 
> Recently I saw one where for every command, instead of just executing the SQL 
> command, the framework did this:

Re: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?

[Greg Keogh]

>
> Another argument we got from the DBAs was "we are responsible for the
> integrity of the data so we're not relying on some thing in the cloud we
> know nothing about."
>

A major Melbourne hospital network said that to us recently. They demanded
that the ASP.NET app be installed by their IT staff on their server. So
instead of having it deployed live in 10 minutes it took 10 days to give
them an MSI with instructions and get it through their bureaucracy (we
think 10 days was pretty good!).

Several months ago I tried to counter this argument by eventually finding
an Azure page that listed the international security certifications. Among
them was "Australian health data", but I don't think many hospitals would
care. Does anyone know of significant Australian government, education or
health services that are using Azure (or AWS or whatever) for managing big
data?

*GK*

RE: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?

[罗格雷格博士]

Sounds like “we know nothing about." is a big part of the issue…

On their worst day, they do a better job of this than any company I’ve ever 
been to. (And I’ve been to plenty)

Regards,

Greg

Dr Greg Low

1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 fax
SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.com 
|http://greglow.me

From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On 
Behalf Of DotNet Dude
Sent: Tuesday, 31 January 2017 3:33 PM
To: ozDotNet 
Subject: Re: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?

Another argument we got from the DBAs was "we are responsible for the integrity 
of the data so we're not relying on some thing in the cloud we know nothing 
about."

On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 1:36 PM, DotNet Dude 
> wrote:
They are definitely the same ones who are the gatekeepers for the decisions. 
I've seen that the most. Protecting their jobs and trying to maintain the 
"seniority by age" mindset in the company. I've seen some gun devs just leave 
because they couldn't be bothered dealing with the nonsense.

On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 1:00 PM, Greg Low (罗格雷格博士) 
> wrote:
So you think it is just job protection?

Are the people protecting their jobs the same ones who are gatekeepers for the 
decisions?
Regards,

Greg

Dr Greg Low
1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 
mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 fax
SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.com


From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com 
> on behalf 
of DotNet Dude >
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2017 7:22:25 AM
To: ozDotNet

Subject: Re: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?

The arguments are everything they can come up with even if they're not true. 
Eg. Pricing. It's just people who have been here the longest trying to keep 
things unchanged and keeping their jobs and super high salaries.

On Saturday, 28 January 2017, Greg Low (罗格雷格博士) 
> wrote:
I can guess, but what type of politics? What are the arguments?

Regards,

Greg

Dr Greg Low

1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 
mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 fax
SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.com 
|http://greglow.me

From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com 
[mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of DotNet Dude
Sent: Saturday, 28 January 2017 12:44 PM
To: ozDotNet >
Subject: Re: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?

Everything Tony said plus politics :p

On Saturday, 28 January 2017, Tony Wright 
> wrote:
Hi Greg,

The main thing I think stopping us has been on premises sql or dev edition sql. 
It just doesn't make sense to rely on the stability of the internet when 
developing, and an existing environment or dev edition is very little cost.

The other issue is that it ends up in an account belonging to a single person 
rather than being an organisational account.

The places where we've used Azure sql is when we've all wanted to all be able 
to access the database remotely with simplicity.

The main business driver for using sql Azure as opposed to on premises sql had 
been more about wanting sql to operate in a DMZ, nowhere near the 
organisation's confidential on premises data.

That said, we've just moved one application to using Windows Azure (started 
with table storage, moved to blob storage) simply because of the significant 
drop in cost of data.

Regards Tony

On 28 Jan 2017 1:19 PM, "Greg Low (罗格雷格博士)" 
> wrote:
To my developer buddies: I'm preparing a session for Ignite where I'm 
discussing using Azure SQL DB for greenfield (new) applications. Would love to 
hear opinions on if you've used it, and what you found/learned, and if you 
haven't used it, what stopped you ?

Regards,

Greg

Dr Greg Low

1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 
mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 fax
SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.com 
|http://greglow.me

RE: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?

[罗格雷格博士]

The way I look at it, is that if you develop for Azure SQL DB, it’s going to 
run pretty much anywhere and if it happens to be on a low latency network, all 
the better.

I hate seeing hardware being used to mask code issues.

The biggest problem is frameworks (and apps built on them) that encourage 
chatty behaviour. Worse are frameworks that are poorly configured.

Recently I saw one where for every command, instead of just executing the SQL 
command, the framework did this:


1.   Create a cursor for the command

2.   Perform a fetch on the cursor to get the data

3.   Perform another fetch on the cursor (which failed)

4.   Close the cursor

5.   Create the same cursor again

6.   Use it to query the parameters and data types

7.   Close the cursor again.

And it did this ON EVERY SINGLE COMMAND 

But even at a large customer that I was at a week or so ago, every command did 
this:


1.   sp_prepexec the command

2.   Retrieve the handle for the command’s execution plan

3.   Execute the command based upon the handle

4.unprepared the command.

And the way they handled transactions was:


1.   Turn on implicit transactions

2.   Perform commands that might or might not do things that should be 
transactional

3.   Regularly execute code that performed a commit, if there happened to 
be a transaction, and often some time later.

In a trace of 250,000 SQL batches, over 180,000 were part of this “transaction 
management”

Apps like these will never work properly in cloud-environments of any type, but 
the problem isn’t the cloud environment.

Regards,

Greg

Dr Greg Low

1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 fax
SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.com 
|http://greglow.me

From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On 
Behalf Of Craig van Nieuwkerk
Sent: Saturday, 28 January 2017 4:50 PM
To: ozDotNet 
Subject: Re: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?

I have been using SQL Azure for about 4 years for our SAAS app. All development 
is done against an on premise SQL Server so there is no problem if we lose 
internet. Developing against a remote DB would be painfully slow anyway.

The biggest issue I find is that SQL Azure will highlight any performance 
issues than can often be masked by an on premise solution where the answer to 
performance is to throw more hardware at it.

We use Visual Studio database project to manage the schema so migration is 
pretty painless.

Craig

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 4:06 PM, Greg Keogh 
> wrote:
I haven't used SQL Azure in a live app yet, but have some personal and testing 
DBs up there. In a couple of weeks I'll share a DB with another developer who 
lives over an hour drive away, so instead of swapping zips of DB backups, we'll 
now connect to the same Azure DB, which is really convenient and easy.

Watch the cost ... I mentioned this last year that a low performance DB can be 
about $30/month, and hundreds/month at the upper end. All our DBs are cheapies 
because luckily we don't need high performance or capacity.

Desktop apps connecting directly to Azure DBs can suffer if you do stupid 
things like select thousands of rows to put in a grid. In this case don't 
design apps that demand huge slabs of data (or use async wisely). If your whole 
suite is in the cloud where public Azure services are privately querying the 
Azure DB then it of course it's blazing fast.

Over the last year I have tried to convince or suggest to several people that 
they consider putting their DBs into the cloud, and in every case I have been 
met with resistance sometimes bordering on hostile, or even mockery. So clearly 
there is a perception problem that may take some time to break down. I pointed 
out that using SQL Azure or similar would mean they no longer needed to buy, 
install and manage the software, or buy a whopping great box, air-conditioner, 
power backup and case of failure, and they can scale up or out as needed, etc, 
but it all falls on deaf ears and everyone chickens out.

Tony was worried about internet connection stability leaving people idle, but I 
reckon if your internet is down everyone stops working anyway and it's a 
disaster. Develop on a local DB.

In summary, I'm biased because I'm utterly sick of hosting software myself when 
it can done by someone in the cloud where I have little worry about failure, 
security or performance. In recent years I've moved 5 web sites, 2 SQL 
databases, most backups, email forwarding and email into online hosting, and 
it's bloody fabulous as I have less and less to manage and worry about on the 
office LAN and server. Only one web site I host is preventing me from actually 
removing my server completely (due to dependence on native DLLs), but I'm 
working on getting rid of it soon. I'll buy one 

Re: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?

[DotNet Dude]

They are definitely the same ones who are the gatekeepers for the
decisions. I've seen that the most. Protecting their jobs and trying to
maintain the "seniority by age" mindset in the company. I've seen some gun
devs just leave because they couldn't be bothered dealing with the nonsense.

On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 1:00 PM, Greg Low (罗格雷格博士)  wrote:

> So you think it is just job protection?
>
> Are the people protecting their jobs the same ones who are gatekeepers for
> the decisions?
>
> Regards,
>
> Greg
>
> Dr Greg Low
> 1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 <+61%20419%20201%20410>
> mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 <+61%203%208676%204913> fax
> SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.com
>
> --
> *From:* ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com  on
> behalf of DotNet Dude 
> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 31, 2017 7:22:25 AM
> *To:* ozDotNet
>
> *Subject:* Re: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?
>
> The arguments are everything they can come up with even if they're not
> true. Eg. Pricing. It's just people who have been here the longest trying
> to keep things unchanged and keeping their jobs and super high salaries.
>
> On Saturday, 28 January 2017, Greg Low (罗格雷格博士)  wrote:
>
>> I can guess, but what type of politics? What are the arguments?
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>>
>>
>> Greg
>>
>>
>>
>> Dr Greg Low
>>
>>
>>
>> 1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 <+61%20419%20201%20410>
>> mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 <+61%203%208676%204913> fax
>>
>> SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.com |http://greglow.me
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-bounces@ozdot
>> net.com] *On Behalf Of *DotNet Dude
>> *Sent:* Saturday, 28 January 2017 12:44 PM
>> *To:* ozDotNet 
>> *Subject:* Re: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?
>>
>>
>>
>> Everything Tony said plus politics :p
>>
>> On Saturday, 28 January 2017, Tony Wright  wrote:
>>
>> Hi Greg,
>>
>>
>>
>> The main thing I think stopping us has been on premises sql or dev
>> edition sql. It just doesn't make sense to rely on the stability of the
>> internet when developing, and an existing environment or dev edition is
>> very little cost.
>>
>>
>>
>> The other issue is that it ends up in an account belonging to a single
>> person rather than being an organisational account.
>>
>>
>>
>> The places where we've used Azure sql is when we've all wanted to all be
>> able to access the database remotely with simplicity.
>>
>>
>>
>> The main business driver for using sql Azure as opposed to on premises
>> sql had been more about wanting sql to operate in a DMZ, nowhere near the
>> organisation's confidential on premises data.
>>
>>
>>
>> That said, we've just moved one application to using Windows Azure
>> (started with table storage, moved to blob storage) simply because of the
>> significant drop in cost of data.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards Tony
>>
>>
>>
>> On 28 Jan 2017 1:19 PM, "Greg Low (罗格雷格博士)"  wrote:
>>
>> To my developer buddies: I'm preparing a session for Ignite where I'm
>> discussing using Azure SQL DB for greenfield (new) applications. Would love
>> to hear opinions on if you've used it, and what you found/learned, and if
>> you haven't used it, what stopped you ?
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>>
>>
>> Greg
>>
>>
>>
>> Dr Greg Low
>>
>>
>>
>> 1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 <+61%20419%20201%20410>
>> mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 <+61%203%208676%204913> fax
>>
>> SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.com |http://greglow.me
>>
>>
>>
>>

Re: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?

[罗格雷格博士]

So you think it is just job protection?

Are the people protecting their jobs the same ones who are gatekeepers for the 
decisions?

Regards,

Greg

Dr Greg Low
1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 fax
SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.com


From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com  on behalf 
of DotNet Dude 
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2017 7:22:25 AM
To: ozDotNet
Subject: Re: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?

The arguments are everything they can come up with even if they're not true. 
Eg. Pricing. It's just people who have been here the longest trying to keep 
things unchanged and keeping their jobs and super high salaries.

On Saturday, 28 January 2017, Greg Low (罗格雷格博士) 
> wrote:
I can guess, but what type of politics? What are the arguments?

Regards,

Greg

Dr Greg Low

1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 fax
SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.com 
|http://greglow.me

From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On 
Behalf Of DotNet Dude
Sent: Saturday, 28 January 2017 12:44 PM
To: ozDotNet 
Subject: Re: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?

Everything Tony said plus politics :p

On Saturday, 28 January 2017, Tony Wright  wrote:
Hi Greg,

The main thing I think stopping us has been on premises sql or dev edition sql. 
It just doesn't make sense to rely on the stability of the internet when 
developing, and an existing environment or dev edition is very little cost.

The other issue is that it ends up in an account belonging to a single person 
rather than being an organisational account.

The places where we've used Azure sql is when we've all wanted to all be able 
to access the database remotely with simplicity.

The main business driver for using sql Azure as opposed to on premises sql had 
been more about wanting sql to operate in a DMZ, nowhere near the 
organisation's confidential on premises data.

That said, we've just moved one application to using Windows Azure (started 
with table storage, moved to blob storage) simply because of the significant 
drop in cost of data.

Regards Tony

On 28 Jan 2017 1:19 PM, "Greg Low (罗格雷格博士)"  wrote:
To my developer buddies: I'm preparing a session for Ignite where I'm 
discussing using Azure SQL DB for greenfield (new) applications. Would love to 
hear opinions on if you've used it, and what you found/learned, and if you 
haven't used it, what stopped you ?

Regards,

Greg

Dr Greg Low

1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 
mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 fax
SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.com 
|http://greglow.me

Re: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?

[DotNet Dude]

The arguments are everything they can come up with even if they're not
true. Eg. Pricing. It's just people who have been here the longest trying
to keep things unchanged and keeping their jobs and super high salaries.

On Saturday, 28 January 2017, Greg Low (罗格雷格博士)  wrote:

> I can guess, but what type of politics? What are the arguments?
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> Greg
>
>
>
> Dr Greg Low
>
>
>
> 1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913
> fax
>
> SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.com |http://greglow.me
>
>
>
> *From:* ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com
>  [mailto:
> ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com
> ] *On
> Behalf Of *DotNet Dude
> *Sent:* Saturday, 28 January 2017 12:44 PM
> *To:* ozDotNet  >
> *Subject:* Re: Used Azure SQL DB? Why or why not?
>
>
>
> Everything Tony said plus politics :p
>
> On Saturday, 28 January 2017, Tony Wright  > wrote:
>
> Hi Greg,
>
>
>
> The main thing I think stopping us has been on premises sql or dev edition
> sql. It just doesn't make sense to rely on the stability of the internet
> when developing, and an existing environment or dev edition is very little
> cost.
>
>
>
> The other issue is that it ends up in an account belonging to a single
> person rather than being an organisational account.
>
>
>
> The places where we've used Azure sql is when we've all wanted to all be
> able to access the database remotely with simplicity.
>
>
>
> The main business driver for using sql Azure as opposed to on premises sql
> had been more about wanting sql to operate in a DMZ, nowhere near the
> organisation's confidential on premises data.
>
>
>
> That said, we've just moved one application to using Windows Azure
> (started with table storage, moved to blob storage) simply because of the
> significant drop in cost of data.
>
>
>
> Regards Tony
>
>
>
> On 28 Jan 2017 1:19 PM, "Greg Low (罗格雷格博士)"  wrote:
>
> To my developer buddies: I'm preparing a session for Ignite where I'm
> discussing using Azure SQL DB for greenfield (new) applications. Would love
> to hear opinions on if you've used it, and what you found/learned, and if
> you haven't used it, what stopped you ?
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> Greg
>
>
>
> Dr Greg Low
>
>
>
> 1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 <+61%20419%20201%20410>
> mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 <+61%203%208676%204913> fax
>
> SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.com |http://greglow.me
>
>
>
>