Azure Arc Releases SQL Managed Instance On-Premises

Azure Arc enabled SQL Managed Instance reaches general availability in July 2021, providing the option to deploy the Azure service on-premises and in non-Azure clouds. The service will most likely interest customers with regulatory, data residency, or compliance requirements that can only be met by hosting databases on-premises or performance demands that require on-premises co-location of databases with other applications and processes. It can also help organizations with hybrid environments that need consistency between hosted and local deployments or with plans to migrate databases to Azure that will mitigate risk by moving to Arc enabled SQL Managed Instance on-premises first. The service provides several benefits over traditional SQL Server deployments, including quicker deployment, simplified database server management, and a rental licensing model that supports on-demand scaling and removes the upfront purchase of server licenses. The service uses Kubernetes clusters and provides most, but not all, of SQL Server’s database, language, and security features. Azure Arc database services details are discussed in “Azure Arc Data Services On-Premises Explained” on page 32 of the Jan. 2021 Update.