HI everyone,
I have a reason to consider going to SQL and the cloud for my Net talk Web app. I did a lot of asking questions.
So far the bottom line is:
- MS SQL or PostGresql as they will replicate. The recommendation is to use MSSQL on Azure because once you set it up, the admins who use Azure say “it just works” and keeps running. Apparently you can do the same with PostGresql on Azure but it is a little more work ( and the SQL database is free). Reecommendation: Have one instance of the SQL database and have it replicate to another physical site. Unless you have a HUGE HUGE customer base…
- If you want an app that scales, then use Azure. There are “azure engineers” who create something akin to “profiles” for bussinesses/users on Azure. The skinny is “if you have an application that is running lets say retail hours 7:00 Am to 10:00 PM and also has web users, then you have a certain base of Azure instances across the country to which your users connect to your app and talk to the SQL server. Now, when businesses open up at 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM you can spin up multiple instances so that there is no bottleneck and then wind them down toward 11:00 AM. Again, you can spin up multiple instances between 5:00 PM and 11:00 PM again, to handle the folks closing their establishment software. Tricky thing is that you can program Azure to do this and be responsive on a minute by minute basis - spinning up and shutting down instances that your users connect to.” I think that this is why pricing gets so quirky. You can roll the instances across the time zones as the day goes on. You can set up the profile so that none of the extra instances get started on holidays and maybe on Sundays. My takeaway is if you want to have a really responsive app you can get an azure engineer to tailor make usage profiles for your app. I haven’t looked into this yet but I have one of these azure engineers that I am going to track down in the near future and try to get more info.
Ron