This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: Microsoft Tech Community - Latest Blogs - .
When selecting an Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server service tier for their application workloads, users have three options to consider – Burstable, General Purpose, and Business Critical.
- The Burstable service tier is best for workloads, such as low usage web servers, proofs-of-concept, and small databases or database build environments that don’t continuously require the full CPU.
- The General Purpose service tier is best for workloads that require balanced price-performance and scale for hosting web and mobile applications as well as other Tier 2 enterprise business applications.
- The Business Critical service tier is ideal for mission critical Tier 1 workloads such as ecommerce, financial, or internet-scale applications, that rely heavily on Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server to always be available, operational, and resilient to failure. Organizations with mission critical workloads that require low latency, high query per second (QPS), high concurrency, fast failover, and faster throughput should choose to run or build their applications on the Business Critical service tier.
Faster performance and better cost savings with Business Critical
Today, we continue to add new features and functionality to the Business Critical service tier to ensure that it remains the preferred destination for hosting mission critical open-source applications that require faster performance, higher scalability, and better overall price-performance. This service tier is only available with Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server.
The Business Critical tier supports an underlying processor that provides higher concurrency and throughput, offering a 1.5x improvement in application performance. In addition, the typical failover time is 50% better, which provides maximum uptime and better high availability for mission critical workloads. The binary logs also run on a low latency storage disk, so the commit and recovery to standby completes much faster, resulting in lower replication latency and faster failover.
In November 2022, we released the public preview of autoscale IOPS, a new feature that enables users to scale IOPS on demand without having to pre-provision a certain amount of IO per second. Now, Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server customers can enjoy worry free IO management because the server scales IOPS up or down automatically depending on workload needs. This also means that customers only pay for the IO the server uses, and they no longer need to provision and pay for resources that aren’t fully being used, saving both time and money.
With the autoscale IOPS feature, mission-critical Tier-1 applications also achieve more consistent performance because of the additional IO available to the workload at any time. November also included the introduction of a new 96vCore instance for Business Critical, which supports even higher scalability and better throughput for customers’ mission critical workloads.
Customers leveraging Business Critical for mission critical applications
CVS Health
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Several customers have adopted the Business Critical service tier for their mission critical workloads. For example, CVS Health leverages the Business Critical tier for their pharmacy warehouse inventory management system, which enables it to dramatically scale up during open enrollment season. By modernizing their infrastructure to Azure, CVS Health has also realized improvements in compute and processing speed while better meeting customer needs.
“We had existing databases that matched closely to Azure Database for MySQL, leading to minimal refactoring changes. This would result in cost savings, scalability, and high availability in a fully managed DBaaS model.” – Anil Handoo, Enterprise Architecture Lead, CVS Health |
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GitHub
| Another customer taking advantage of the benefits offered by the Business Critical tier is GitHub, which regularly supports and partners with large enterprise customers that have high FedRAMP requirements, such as better data resiliency, business continuity, and disaster recovery. For GitHub, Business Critical ensures that their customers’ mission critical workloads achieve better uptime, improved data resiliency, and enhanced storage capabilities. |  |
In summary
We are continuing to add more improvements to the Business Critical service tier to make Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server the preferred destination for your open source mission critical applications.
In the coming months, some new Business Critical service tier feature improvements include log placement on a low latency managed disk, 104 vCore compute instances for higher scalability, and storage up to 32TB. These features will be available in limited preview and will be released and announced publicly in coming months. Stay tuned!
Links
- For more information about the Business Critical service tier, see the blog post Boost Azure MySQL Business Critical flexible server performance by 30% with the Ev5 compute series!
- For more information about Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server, see the product documentation.