SQL Database Hyperscale: Here to Stay

• Azure SQL Database Hyperscale is a service tier supporting applications that need databases of up to 100TB.
• It can support multiple (up to 30) read-only servers that access the same database, reducing overall storage cost for large BI applications.
• Hyperscale provides a cloud database solution that simplifies complex database sharding requirements previously limited to SQL Server.
• The service may not meet the demands of applications needing the high-performance throughput of full database replication.

Azure SQL Database Hyperscale is a special deployment option designed for large-scale business intelligence (BI) applications that will have large numbers of mostly read-only users. A unique feature of Hyperscale is its ability to share a single database amongst multiple servers, in which each server is sized and configured independently to address different workloads. For example, the service might be used to host a global PC sales database in which consumers use one application to configure and purchase a computer with options, prices, and availability based on their geographic region, and internal manufacturing, warehousing, logistics, and forecasting applications access the same data through separate applications for different purposes. However, Hyperscale does not support certain advanced features and does not provide the same level of performance and options found in other distributed database offerings, such as Azure Cosmos DB and traditional SQL Server deployments.