Enterprises running Microsoft SQL Server environments now have a more straightforward way to migrate their workloads to Google’s cloud platform.
The company this week announced beta availability of new pre-configured images for Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise and Windows Server Core on the Google Compute Engine infrastructure as a service platform.
The images allow organizations to launch virtual machines on Compute Engine with Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Edition pre-installed on them. Google’s business customers will have the option of either paying by the minute for the SQL Server and Windows Server licenses or deploying their own Microsoft Windows application licenses on Google’s Cloud Platform.
Pre-configured images are currently available in beta for the 2016, 2014 and 2012 editions of SQL Server Enterprise.
In addition to the SQL server images, Google this week also announced new high-availability and disaster recovery capabilities for companies running mission critical SQL Server workloads on Compute Engine.
Starting this week, for instance, Google cloud platform will support SQL Server’s AlwaysOn Availability Groups high-availability and disaster recovery feature.
Organizations can use it to configure replicas of their databases on virtual machines in different zones as backups in the event of a server failure said Amruta Gulanikar, product manager for Google Cloud Platform in a blog announcing the new features. The feature, which Microsoft introduced with SQL Server 2012, allows organizations to failover multiple databases at once so applications that use them are not disrupted.
In addition, Google also supports Microsoft’s Volume Shadow Copy Service on Windows Server so enterprises can take persistent snapshots or copies of files as they are being used. The feature is useful for administrators that want a consistent backup for SQL Server and Exchange server without having to disrupt or shutdown the workload running on virtual machines, Gulanikar said.
All Windows Server images, including Windows Server Core 2016 and 2012 running on Google cloud can also now be managed remotely via Windows Remote Management tool, she added.
Companies that choose to have their SQL Server instances running on Google’s cloud platform can gain substantial performance and price benefits compared to other cloud providers, Gulanikar claimed.
Features like Google’s Custom Machine Types, for instance, gives organizations a way to create custom virtual machines with as few as one virtual CPU. Similarly, pricing options like sustained use discounts, where organizations can get up to 30 percent off on workloads that run consistently on Google cloud, can help organizations reduce overall costs, she said.
The new support for SQL Server Enterprise builds on Google’s efforts to make it easier for organizations to run Windows workloads on its cloud platform. Last August, for instance, the company announced the availability of pre-configured VM images for Microsoft SQL Server Standard edition, Windows Server 2016 and SQL Server Web.
Companies that want to run SQL Server standard on Google Compute Engine can currently get pre-installed images for the 2012, 2014 and 2016 versions of SQL Server Standards and AQL Server Web and also SQL Server Express 2016.
In September, Google also announced a set of tools to help developers in .NET environments access and better manage Windows workloads on Compute Engine.