Data Storage and Access

Azure offers several database and data storage services that use a combination of proprietary and open-source technologies to store and manage a variety of data types. They can be used with applications hosted on Azure and elsewhere. This chapter includes data integration tools that provide hosted extract, transform, and load (ETL) capabilities; data catalog and governance offerings; and services that help migrate data to Azure and share it between Azure customers.

Microsoft’s SQL Server on-premises product can be hosted in an Azure VM (using an Infrastructure as a Service [IaaS] model), while Azure SQL Database, SQL Managed Instance, and Synapse Analytics offer SQL Server database technology in a Platform as a Service (PaaS) model.

Nonrelational data storage for NoSQL stores and data lakes is available in several formats, primarily based on open-source Hadoop, Apache, and MongoDB technology. (For general comparisons, see “Comparing Database Offerings.”)

(See “Data Storage and Access Services Dates.”)