Stretch Database Stores Cold Data in Azure

Stretch Database is the name of a new data management technology in SQL Server 2016 that allows on-premises databases to leverage Azure Stretch (a hosted service) to store historic or rarely used data and potentially reduce on-premises storage costs. The feature is compatible with most SQL Server capabilities and automatically handles data movement between on-premises and Azure Stretch; however, Stretch Database has compatibility limitations, and most applications will need some modification. This first release of Stretch Database represents an important direction and architectural concept for SQL Server that organizations should consider for future application development.

Stretch to Remote Storage

The Stretch Database feature enables developers to extend on-premises databases into an Azure service called Azure Stretch. The feature allows current (hot) data to remain on-premises in fast storage, while historic (cold) data is migrated to Azure Stretch. Azure Stretch is a hosted, scalable, data-repository as a service that acts as a back-end storage solution for SQL Server 2016 databases.