

Start the development environments with the lower-tier D-Series, B-Series, or Av2-series and grow your environment over time. If you're creating a new SQL Server VM with a new application built for the cloud, you can easily size your SQL Server VM as your data and usage requirements evolve.

If this is a new VM, then create your new SQL Server VM based on your vendor requirements. If you're migrating an existing environment, collect a performance baseline to determine your SQL Server on Azure VM requirements. When you're creating a SQL Server on Azure VM, carefully consider the type of workload necessary. To compare the VM size checklist with the others, see the comprehensive Performance best practices checklist. Use Azure Data Studio to migrate to Azure.Use the Data Migration Assistant and SKU recommendation tools to find the right VM size for your existing SQL Server workload.Collect the target workload's performance characteristics and use them to determine the appropriate VM size for your business.Use Azure Marketplace images to deploy your SQL Server Virtual Machines as the SQL Server settings and storage options are configured for optimal performance.Consider these VMs for mission critical and data warehouse workloads. The M series VMs offer the highest memory-to-vCore ratio in Azure.The Edsv5 series, the M-, and the Mv2- series offer the optimal memory-to-vCore ratio required for OLTP workloads.Use memory optimized virtual machine sizes for the best performance of SQL Server workloads.Use VM sizes with 4 or more vCPUs like the E4ds_v5 or higher.

Consider this series first for most SQL Server workloads. This series offers the best price-performance for SQL Server workloads on Azure VMs. The new Ebdsv5-series provides the highest I/O throughput-to-vCore ratio in Azure along with a memory-to-vCore ratio of 8.Review the following checklist for a brief overview of the VM size best practices that the rest of the article covers in greater detail: Consider your performance needs, costs, and workload patterns as you evaluate these recommendations.įor comprehensive details, see the other articles in this series: Checklist, Storage, Security, HADR configuration, Collect baseline. If your workload is less demanding, you might not require every recommended optimization. This performance best practices series is focused on getting the best performance for SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines. There's typically a trade-off between optimizing for costs and optimizing for performance. This article provides VM size guidance a series of best practices and guidelines to optimize performance for your SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines (VMs).
