Overview

Full-featured relational database management system

Benefit from:

  • Maximum savings on the Microsoft server workloads
  • Access to Azure Hybrid Benefit without having Software Assurance
  • Access to some Software Assurance benefits
  • Support from Grey Matter

Resources

Overview

If you want to run predictable SQL Server workloads in Azure, you can now make use of a fixed 1-year or 3-year subscription that works alongside Reserved Instances and Azure virtual machines to provide you with the best possible price. This could equal savings of up to 72% for SQL Server, compared to the same model on PAYG on Azure.

You will also receive access to certain benefits included in Software Assurance (SA), something which you would have previously had to buy separately. SA helps companies to get the most from investment in Microsoft technologies by lowering off-premises deployment costs through Licence Mobility and Disaster Recovery benefits. One benefit is the Semi-Annual Channel which has a faster release cadence than the Long-Term Servicing Channel.

With new releases every six months, the Semi-Annual Channel is particularly useful to those of you that have modern applications and innovation scenarios such as containers and micro-services that require faster innovation. SA also provides access to new version rights also allow you to use the latest version of the Microsoft software you need. As part of this you will get the following benefits:

  • Self-hosting*
  • Disaster recovery
  • Fail-over Rights
  • Licence mobility across Server Farms
  • Unlimited virtualisation, Machine Learning, and PowerBI Report Server**

*Licences can be used to provide customer-facing software-solutions hosted on dedicated servers on-premises subject to the Product Terms or shared servers in Azure subject to the Online Service Terms

**For Enterprise Core licences only

Just because the server subscriptions are purchased via the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program doesn’t mean the licences have to be used on Azure. You will be entitled to the Azure Hybrid benefit and be able to choose whether you use your licences for Azure virtual machines or in on-premises deployments.


Please note: Each set of 4 core licences entitles you to use SQL Server software on Azure on up to 4 Virtual Cores on a single SQL Server VM in addition you may also run passive fail-over Instances on Microsoft Azure in anticipation of a fail-over event, and for dedicated on-premises servers the minimum licensing requirement is 4 core licences per physical processor or per VM and certain SA benefits are included. If you require assistance in licensing your scenario, please contact us.