This course provides students with the knowledge and skills to administer a SQL Server database infrastructure for cloud, on-premises and hybrid relational databases and who work with the Microsoft PaaS relational database offerings. Additionally, it will be of use to individuals who develop applications that deliver content from SQL-based relational databases.

Plan, deploy and configure Azure SQL offerings
Monitor database performance and tune a database and queries for optimum performance
Plan and configure a High Availability Solution

The audience for this course is data professionals managing data and databases who want to learn about administering the data platform technologies that are available on Microsoft Azure. This course is also valuable for data architects and application developers who need to understand what technologies are available for the data platform with Azure and how to work with those technologies through applications.

Successful Azure Database Administrators start this role with professional experience in database management and technical knowledge of cloud technologies.

Specifically:

Working with, maintaining, and developing with SQL Server
Experience with Azure, such as deploying and managing resources
At a minimum, you should know the information in the following online training before attending the course:

AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals
DP-900 Azure Data Fundamentals

Module 1: Introduction to Azure Database Administration
This module explores the role of a database administrator in the world of Azure SQL. It also provides some foundational information relevant to the overall content. This includes a review of the various SQL Server-based options (SQL Server in a VM, SQL Managed Instance, and Azure SQL Database).

Lessons
Prepare to maintain SQL databases on Azure
After completing this module, students will be able to:

Understand the role of Azure Database Administrator as it fits in with other data platform roles

Be able to describe the key differences between the SQL Server-based database options

Describe other features for Azure SQL platforms available

Module 2: Plan and Implement Data Platform Resources
This module introduces methods for deploying data platform resources in Azure SQL. You will learn about options for both upgrading and migrating existing SQL databases to Azure. You will learn how to set up Azure resources to host SQL Server on a Virtual Machine, a SQL Managed Instance, and SQL Database. You will learn how to determine which options are best based on specific requirements including the High Availability and Disaster Recovery (HADR) needs. They will learn to calculate resource requirements and understand hybrid approaches.

Lessons
Deploy IaaS solutions with Azure SQL

Deploy PaaS solutions with Azure SQL

Evaluate strategies for migrating to Azure SQL

Migrate SQL workloads to Azure SQL Databases

Migrate SQL workloads to Azure Managed Instances

Lab : Provision SQL Server on an Azure Virtual Machine
Explore the Azure Portal
Deploy a SQL Server on an Azure Virtual Machine
Connect to SQL Server on an Azure Virtual Machine
Lab : Provision an Azure SQL Database
Create a Virtual Network
Deploy an Azure SQL Database
Connect to an Azure SQL Database using Azure Data Studio
Query an Azure SQL Database using SQL Notebook
After completing this module, students will be able to:

Explore the basics of SQL Server in an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering

Understand PaaS provisioning and deployment options

Evaluate migration scenarios to SQL Managed Instance and SQL Database

Evaluate and implement a strategy for moving a database to Azure

Module 3: Implement a Secure Environment for a Database Service
This module explores the practices of securing your SQL Server Database as well as an Azure SQL database. This includes a review of the various SQL Server-based options as well as the various Azure options for securing Azure SQL Database. Students will lean why security is crucial when working with databases, and explain authentication options for Azure SQL Database.

Lessons
Configure database authentication and authorization

Protect data in-transit and at rest

Implement compliance controls for sensitive data

Lab : Configure a server-based firewall rule using the Azure portal
Configure Azure SQL Database firewall rules
Validate access
Lab : Authorize Access to Azure SQL Database with Azure Active Directory
Create users
Manage access to database objects
Validate access
Lab : Enable Microsoft Defender for SQL and Data Classification
Enable Microsoft Defender for Azure SQL Database
Configure Data Classification for Azure SQL Database
After completing this module, students will be able to:

Understand the differences between Windows, SQL Server and Azure Active Directory Authentication

Describe and configure both data-at-rest encryption solutions as well as data-in-transit encryption

Implement a data sensitivity solution

Module 4: Monitor and Optimize Operational Resources
This module will teach you about resource optimization for your databases created using either IaaS or PaaS services. The module also covers monitoring server and hardware resources. It will familiarize you with the various tools available for monitoring performance and establishing a baseline. You will learn how to interpret performance metrics for the most critical resources. You will also learn how to troubleshoot database performance using Azure SQL Insights.

Lessons
Describe performance monitoring

Configure SQL Server resources for optimal performance

Configure databases for optimal performance

Lab : Isolate performance problems through monitoring
Review CPU utilization in Azure portal
Identify high CPU queries
Lab : Detect and correct fragmentation issues
Investigate index fragmentation
Rebuild fragmented indexes
Validate performance improvements
After completing this module, students will be able to:

Monitor activity and compare to a baseline

Identify major causes of performance problems

Configure resources for optimal performance

Configure a user database for optimal performance

Module 5: Optimize Query Performance
Query execution plans are potentially the most important aspect of database performance. Improving bad plans is certainly an area where a small amount of effort can bring huge improvements. While hardware issues can limit query performance, improving hardware usually yields performance improvements in the 10-20% range, at most. More commonly database administrators encounter queries that are not optimized, have stale or missing statistics, have missing indexes, or poor database design choices that lead to the database engine doing more work than is necessary to return results for a given query. Improving the plans can sometimes yield performance improvements in the 100-200% range or even more, meaning that after improving a plan with better indexes or statistics, a query could run twice or three times as fast! This module provides details on how to analyze individual query performance and determine where improvements can be made.

Lessons
Explore query performance optimization

Explore performance-based database design

Evaluate performance improvements

Lab : Identify database design issues
Examine the query and identify the problem
Identify ways to fix the warning message
Improve the code
Lab : Identify and resolve blocking issues
Run blocked queries report
Enable Read Commit Snapshot isolation level
Evaluate performance improvements
Lab : Isolate problem areas in poorly performing queries in a SQL Database
Generate actual execution plan
Resolve a suboptimal query plan
Use Query Store to detect and handle regression
Examine Top Resource Consuming Queries report
Force a better execution plan
Use query hints to impact performance
After completing this module, students will be able to:

Analyze query plans and identify problem areas

Evaluate potential query improvements using Query Store

Review table and index design

Determine whether query or design changes have had a positive effect

Module 6: Automate database tasks
A common goal for database administrators in many environments is to automate as many of their repetitive tasks. This can be as simple as using scripting to automate a backup process, and as complex as building a fully automated alerting system. This module provides details of automating tasks to simplify the DBA’s job. Methods include scheduling tasks for regular maintenance jobs, as well as how to use elastic jobs and Azure Automation runbooks.

Lessons
Automate deployment of database resources

Create and manage SQL Agent jobs

Manage Azure PaaS tasks using automation

Lab : Deploy an automation runbook to automatically rebuild indexes
Create an Automation Account
Connect to an existing Azure SQL Database
Configure Automation Account assets
Create a PowerShell runbook
Create a schedule for a runbook
Lab : Deploy Azure SQL Database using an Azure Resource Manager template
Explore Azure Resource Manager template
Lab : Create a CPU status alert for a SQL Server
Create an alert when a CPU exceeds an average of 80 percent
After completing this module, students will be able to:

Deploy resources using automated deployment scripts

Create scheduled tasks

Create notifications and alerts

Configure automation for PaaS services

Module 7: Plan and Implement a High Availability and Disaster Recovery Solution
Data must be available when the business needs it. That means the solutions hosting the data must be designed with availability and recoverability in mind. Suppose you work for a company that sells widgets both in stores and online. Your main application uses a highly transactional database for orders. What would happen if the server or platform hosting the transactional database had a problem that made it unavailable or inaccessible for some reason? What impact would it have on the business? If the right solution is put in place, the database would come online in a reasonable timeframe with minimal effort, thus allowing business to continue with little-to-no impact. This module and its associated lab cover configuring, testing, and managing a solution for high availability and disaster recovery (HADR) in Azure, for both Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) deployments. This module will not only cover basic requirements, but also the various options available to achieve HADR.

Lessons
High Availability and Disaster Recovery Strategies

IaaS Platform and Database Tools for HADR

PaaS Platform and Database Tools for HADR

Database Backup and Recovery

Lab : Backup to URL and Restore from URL
Create a credential
Backup to URL
Validate backup through Azure CLI and Storage Explorer
Restore from URL
Lab : Configure geo-replication for Azure SQL Database
Enable geo-replication
Failover to a secondary region
After completing this module, students will be able to:

The difference between recovery time and recovery point objectives

The available HADR options for both IaaS and PaaS

The considerations for planning and configuring HADR solutions including how backup and restore fi

The factors that comprise a HADR strategy

How to configure a high availability solution via a hands-on lab