Updated: July 15, 2020 (October 13, 2014)

Comparing SQL Server Features On-Premises with Azure Offerings

Andrew analyzes and writes about Microsoft's data management, business intelligence, and machine learning solutions, as well as aspects of licensing... more

Feature	Description	SQL Server 2014 On-Premises	SQL Server 2014 in Azure VMs	Azure SQL Database
Tenancy	The location and hosting environment	Customer premises	Microsoft data center (multitenant VM hosting)	Microsoft data center (multitenant hosted platform)
Product updates	Customer performs SQL Server updates	Yes	Yes	No
OS updates	Customer performs OS updates	Yes	Yes	No
Physical updates	Customer performs hardware updates	Yes	No	No
Performance scaling	Scaling technique to increase performance to address workload demands	Scale up to higher spec hardware	Scale up to higher performing VM	Scale up to higher tier and performance level
Max database size	Maximum database size supported	524PB	524PB	500GB
Max memory size	Maximum memory available	Hardware limit	112GB	N/A
Max cores	Maximum number of server cores	Hardware

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