To expand on Raymond's response. In this article. Azure SQL Database Hyperscale Serverless is available. The entire Elastic DB components are as follows for SQL server, sharding was added via the Elastic Database SDK which involves the following components (some of which are available only in Azure): • Elastic Database Client Library Manage the data distributions and map Tenants to databases. In this tutorial, you deploy and explore the Wingtip Tickets SaaS database-per-tenant application (Wingtip). We’ll lose some database engine features that relied on directly working in the data file – for example, right now Hyperscale doesn’t offer Transparent Data Encryption or bulk logged. We call this a "shard", which can also live in a totally separate database cluster. Allowing customers to have their own database, to share databases or to access many databases. Therefore, it might be required to use database sharding to spread a large database across several Azure SQL Databases. In the elastic pool details, enter a pool name as highlighted below. SqlDatabase. Set the ElasticScaleStarterKit project as the Startup Project. Either a shard or the ShardMapManager database is restored to an earlier point-in time. 86+00:00. Database sharding is the process of breaking up large database tables into smaller chunks called shards. Azure SQL database is scalable database platform as a service that enables you to easily increase or remove resources in your database, offload queries to secondary nodes or implement full sharding solution. To run the split operation: Deploy the Azure split/merge service. sp_add_job and jobs. Select Firewalls and virtual networks from left navigation. In the above environment, Sharding databases are distributed among three database servers and sharded databases are shown in blue color. A shard is an individual partition that exists on separate database server instance to spread load. The targets for Elastic Database Jobs can be singleton Azure SQL Databases, Elastic Pools, Azure SQL Servers (PaaS), Shard Map, or manually maintained custom groups. This is known as data sharding and it can be achieved through different strategies, each with its own tradeoffs. If you decide to implement sharding, you don’t need to migrate all of the original data into a sharding cluster. The functionality is a part of the Azure SQL Database Elastic Database feature set. The tool must be run from a local machine. Applies to: Azure SQL Database. RobinSue in Azure SQL Database Hyperscale – lower, simplified pricing! on Nov 16 2023 02:21 AM. It cannot be uploaded and run from an Azure environment. ElasticScale. One prominent use case is the need to perform atomic changes for a sharded multi-tenant application when changes. Azure Storage. The nodes in a cluster collectively hold more data and use more CPU cores than would be possible on a single server. NET Framework 4. Create Shard Maps in the Sharded Database. The database scoped credential contains the credentials used to connect to your external data source. Applies to: Azure SQL Database. Conclusion. I have verified that the sharding mechanism works (approximately equal number of entries end up in each database) and have stripped all non-essential code from the page so that all that is happening is the two queries noted. This question is in a collective: a subcommunity defined by tags with relevant content and experts. About Oracle Sharding. The Shard Map database is a regular Azure SQL DB and should be created via the Azure portal front-end. Each shard is held on a separate database server instance, to spread load. Step 1: Create a shard map manager. To expand on Raymond's response. Depending on the sharding approach used, additional constraints may be imposed on the database schema. It caches data by temporarily copying frequently accessed data to fast storage that's located close to the application. These terms are used in Adding a shard using Elastic Database tools and Using the RecoveryManager class to fix shard map problems. Sharding increases database capacity and query performance, because each added SQL Azure database brings its own memory and virtual CPU. Oracle Globally Distributed Database can be used to store massive amounts of structured and unstructured data and to eliminate data fragmentation. Open the Azure portal and browse the resource groups. Building applications at scale on Azure SQL may mean that you need to shard your database. Auto sharding or data sharding is needed when a dataset is too big to be stored in a single. The Wingtip Tickets app is designed to showcase features of Azure SQL Database that simplify the implementation of SaaS scenarios. Doing so is a challenge since you’ll face the following issues: How to shard data while the business is running 24/7. . In general, elastic pools are designed for a typical software-as-a-service (SaaS) application pattern, with one database. For larger render farms, scaling becomes a key performance issue. YugabyteDB is an auto-sharded, ultra-resilient, high-performance, geo-distributed SQL database built with inspiration from Google Spanner. For this approach, you need to understand that OLTP applications often perform transactions that apply to only one row or to a small group of rows in the schema. Azure Cosmos DB is a fully managed NoSQL and relational database for modern app development. Thus, you cannot downgrade a P11-4TB/P15-4TB to a P11-1TB/P15-1TB or. I wrote a proof of concept about a month ago using NHibernate on SQLAzure/Sharding. There are two commonly used horizontal database scaling techniques: replication and horizontal partitioning (or sharding). Upgrade the metadata supporting your Shard Maps in Azure SQL Database. This implementation of the Wingtip Tickets app uses a sharded multi-tenant database pattern. I talked to them about achieving some of the data, but they need all 10 years worth of data apparently. For general guidance about when to partition data and best practices, see Data partitioning. When creating or updating a P11 or P15 database, you can only chose between 1 TB and 4 TB maxsize. I have DB with near about 50GB and which may grow up to 70GB. Scaling out vs. With Sharding, records are. A distributed SQL database provides a service where you can query the global database without knowing where the rows are. 1. We can set up sharding (sometimes called database federation) pretty easily at one of many levels. By default, the primary key in YugabyteDB is sharded using HASH. A set of SQL databases is hosted on Azure using sharding architecture. Mark Simms discusses partitioning schemes, sharding strategies, how to implement sharding, and SQL Database Federations, starting at 19:49. Connect to the jobagent database in the catalog server. Sharding is a scale-out strategy that spreads data across a number of independent databases. According to the description from Azure here, you use Sharding when you want to split large databases into smaller components. Or if you prefer horizontally scaling your Azure SQL database. This makes possible common cross-database querying tasks like selecting from a remote table into a local table. Quickstart: Create a Hyperscale database in Azure SQL Database . SQL Server Firewall access: In the Azure portal, navigate to SQL server. Using the Database sharding, I believe this would be called adding a shard and the user would then be added to our ShardMapManager and given a shard key which would allow them to read and write data to the newly created Database(Shard). PaaS SQL database comparison: AWS vs Azure vs GCP. Click on create a new server. Basically, I am wondering if anyone has any experience with increasing DTUs v. Doing so is a challenge since you’ll face the following issues: How to shard data while the business is running 24/7. Compute is separate from storage, which enables you to scale compute independently of the data in your system. This is in addition to the free Azure SQL Database offer that launched in October 2023. This document illustrates the changes in Dapper-based applications that are necessary to integrate with elastic. Create secondary filegroups and add data files into each filegroup. Figure 1 - Employee Payroll System. Database sharding is a type of horizontal partitioning that splits large databases into smaller components, which are faster and easier to manage. One of the big new things that the Hyperscale (Citus) option in the Azure Database for PostgreSQL managed service enables you to do—in addition to being able to scale out Postgres horizontally—is that you can now shard Postgres on a single Hyperscale (Citus) node. Scroll down and locate databases and select tenants1. This DB contains data of near about 10 different clients so I am planning to move on Azure. Traditionally, when a server starts to reach its limit we have simply thrown more resources at it, either more CPU, memory or disk. Azure SQL Database elastic pools are a simple, cost-effective solution for managing and scaling multiple databases, but no only one database. Oct 5, 2016 at 19:02. The shard map manager is a special database that maintains global. It allows you to perform cross-database queries to access remote tables, and to connect Microsoft and third party tools (Excel, PowerBI, Tableau, etc. 3. Alberto Morillo 31,771 Reputation points • MVP 2022-06-28T04:53:10. Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB makes it easy to use Azure Cosmos DB as if it were a MongoDB database. CreateShard (new ShardLocation (shardServer, "your_clean_database"));. azure-sql-database. An Azure SQL Database User with 'db_datareader' access to navigate and select the tables or views you wish to share. I have just posted a PowerShell example which provides the e2e experience of managing large numbers of Azure SQL Database databases at once. 1. -- Connect to master CREATE LOGIN loader WITH PASSWORD = 'a123STRONGpassword!'; Connect to the dedicated SQL pool and create a user. Depending on the need, use the credential with the lowest level of access possible. By sharding your database across multiple, lower-cost disks, you can save money by avoiding the additional costs of their more expensive counterparts. It introduces SQL Azure Sharding, which is an abstraction layer in SQL Azure to support sharding. This inserts. You can make a 'do-it-yourself' hash shard map by hashing your shard key yourself and then using a RangeShardMap on the hash values. Use the split-merge tool to move data from constrained databases to the new databases. Your new and existing general purpose provisioned and serverless Azure SQL Database elastic pools allow for. Some customers use sharding techniques to spread database operations over multiple. execute_query. Search Automation in the Azure. One of the big advantages of microservices is, that they can be scaled independently. The A-M shard has become what is known as a database hotspot. Applies to: Azure SQL Database. Basically, I am wondering if anyone has any experience with increasing DTUs v. Where your transactional database requirements exceed the maximum capacity of a single Azure SQL database in the General Purpose service tier. Show 7 more. Creating database objects . In the next window, enter the fully qualified server name and specify Direct Query as the data connectivity. Organisations use Azure SQL to store data from a web. Since your data is stored and managed by Azure Storage, there is a separate charge for. Add the clean database from the previous step as a shard to your existing shard map with a call like this: shardmap. Database sharding is a powerful tool for optimizing the performance and scalability of a database. With Sharding, records are grouped by a particular key, known as a Sharding Key. Applies to: Azure SQL Database. How-To Guide. Ensure that your server allows Azure Services to connect to it. So, if you have a 5 DTUs and you go to 10 DTUs, you should (theoretically) get about twice the performance. In Azure SQL Database and Azure Synapse Analytics, a server is a logical construct that acts as a central administrative point for a collection of databases. Create Shard Maps in the Sharded Database. All the. We have a 6vCore Database with 1HA with 2. Photo by Robert V. 1. The first step is to connect to master and create a login. db"; dbContext. Create an external data source in the CRM database and pass the name of the shard map created in shard map manager to SHARD_MAP_NAME. In this post, we will examine various data sharding strategies for a distributed SQL database, analyze the tradeoffs, explain. SQL Azure federation provides tools that allow developers to scale out (by sharding) in SQL Azure. The cost depends on the Azure SQL DB database edition you choose and the Azure usage of your application. To connect to SQL Server using sqlcmd, you have to open your terminal (Command Prompt in Windows) and type: sqlcmd -S localhost -U SA -P 'password'. ElasticScale. The tenant identifier is the leading element in the primary key of all sharded tables. Sharding is actually complex and imposes certain limitations, regardless of the path you take. In this post, I describe how to use Amazon RDS to implement a. Create a Database Scoped Credential. Using the Database sharding, I believe this would be called adding a shard and the user would then be added to our ShardMapManager and given a shard key which would allow them to read and write data to the newly created Database(Shard). Instead of routing all writes to one server and scaling up, it’s possible to write to many servers and scale out. As I mentioned earlier in this guide, “sharding” is the process of distributing rows from one or more tables across multiple database instances on different servers. The Wingtip Tickets app is designed to showcase features of Azure SQL Database that simplify the implementation of SaaS scenarios. Additionally, each subset is called a shard. Database sharding is a type of horizontal partitioning that splits large databases into smaller components, which are faster and easier to manage. The Master Key is used to protect the Database Scoped Credential: CREATE MASTER KEY ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = ‘<your password goes here>’; 2. This tutorial builds upon the Brian Swans tutorial on SQLAzure Sharding and turns all the examples into examples using the Doctrine Sharding support. Only this dedicated database needs access to the shard map. Sharding is a means of spreading records across multiple databases in order to decrease the load on any one particular database. cs with your server name, the database names, and your credentials to connect to the databases. Sharding, also known as horizontal partitioning, is a popular scale-out approach for relational databases. This article shows the benefits and challenges of scaling one microservice and its database. While modern database servers. Autoincremented values in other fields that are not shard keys can also cause problems. Apache ShardingSphere is a distributed database middleware created to solve data sharding issues. 8TB of storage used. Each shard is counted as a separate database in the elastic pool; Therefore, if you have 10 shards in an elastic pool, you will have 10 databases in the pool. Once you're signed in, you'll see the following page: Click on the + Create new resource button, located on the left-hand side of the screen. The GSM and LSM track the mapping of each database in a. This document is for developers that rely on Dapper to build applications, but also want to embrace elastic database tooling to create applications that implement sharding to scale out their data tier. Therefore, it might be required to use database sharding to spread a large database across several Azure. Colocation helps optimize JOINs across these tables. Query (nvarchar): The T-SQL query to be executed on the remote. For best performance, if the external data source driver supports a three-part name, it is strongly recommended to provide the three-part name. What is sharding and why is it important? 1. 2. In the command window, type "1" and press Enter. From a requirements perspective 1) concurrent ETL processes thus concurrent writes to datawarehouse 2) consumers of the data would use a single point/query delegator. The tools are used to manage shard maps, and include the client library, the split-merge tool, elastic pools, and queries. This capability redirects the read-only client connections to one of the automatically provisioned HA replicas and effectively doubles the compute capacity of the database or elastic pool at no additional charge. Configure Azure Automation. Capabilities. Partitioning and Sharding Options for SQL Server and SQL Azure. Multi-shard querying is used for tasks such as data collection/reporting that. Next, select “ Don’t use profile “. Remember the name of. Using this feature, you can scale out queries to large data tiers in SQL Database and visualize the results in business intelligence (BI) reports. 8 out of 10. Next steps. Create the Server - The easiest way to create an Azure Server for use with the Elastic Scale Databases is to create a sample database by going through the steps in this post. . Each tablet has a Raft group of its own with one leader and a number of followers equal to RF-1. With Azure, it is easy to scale-out applications. From a requirements perspective 1) concurrent ETL processes thus concurrent writes to datawarehouse 2) consumers of the data would use a single point/query delegator. How the database is split up is an architectural decision that will be driven by how you need to access the information. Azure SQL Database elastic pools are a simple, cost-effective solution for managing and scaling multiple databases with varying and unpredictable usage demands. I need some advice and opinions about. I need some advice and opinions about having. Consider the following points when deciding how to implement this pattern: Sharding is complementary to other forms of partitioning, such as vertical partitioning and functional partitioning. Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL assigns each row to a shard based on the value of the distribution column, which, in our case, we specified to be email. The metadata allows an application to connect to the correct database based upon the value of the sharding key. The following example in C# uses a set of SQL Server databases acting as shards. Create a partition scheme for mapping the partitions with filegroups. Disable xConnect to avoid data loss or. Azure. If you decide to implement sharding, you don’t need to migrate all of the original data into a sharding cluster. About; Products For Teams; Stack Overflow Public questions & answers;. Sharded database applications in Azure: With this scenario, the data tier uses the Elastic Database client library or self-sharding to horizontally partition the data across many databases in SQL Database or SQL Managed Instance. Auto sharding or data sharding is needed when a dataset is too big to be stored in a single. Azure SQL Database supports two types of pricing models. Azure SQL database is scalable database platform as a service that enables you to easily increase or remove resources in your database, offload. A shard is an individual partition that exists on separate database server instance to spread load. You query your tables, and the database will determine the best access to. These counters are accessible in the Performance Monitor, under the "Elastic Database: Shard Management" category. Five minutes after you select Deploy to. With Azure SQL Database, you can focus on developing your application, while the parent company takes care of the underlying infrastructure, including maintenance, backups and disaster recovery procedures. You should post this on the SQL Azure forum. Azure Cosmos DB is a fully managed NoSQL and relational database for modern app development with SLA-backed speed and. Sharding is a means of spreading records across multiple databases in order to decrease the load on any one particular database. Enter sql in the filter to bring up the SQL-related extensions. 2. Click Connect . It currently supports hash and range sharding. This database will be hit by all clients to discover which shard database they need to connect to, so make sure it’s powerful enough to handle the expected load. Under the Database pane, you can see SQL Database. Most notably, elastic database query now supports querying across databases in Azure SQL Database. Azure SQL Database differs from on-premises SQL Server in a few ways. Understand the tradeoffs between batching/buffering and resiliency. Start building applications with a free trial. in this article point 4 saying so. Auto sharding or data sharding is needed when a dataset is too big to be stored in a single. In December of 2014, Microsoft release the preview version of Azure SQL Database update V12. Use buffering and batching to increase the performance and scalability of Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance applications. Select Azure SQL in the left-hand menu of the Azure portal. If you ever plan to do data movement with Split-Merge you will need to store the. To view the capacity of each tier, click on the respective tab. SQL Server and SQL Azure Shard Library. Azure SQL Database is a PaaS which allows you to store SQL. – Shannon Lowder. Many features for sharding are implemented on the database level, which makes it much easier to. For example, you can shard by day range and have already allocated 50 days to a shard, but on day 24, you want future data to land in a different shard. The T-SQL commands are syntax are similar to the steps needed to create SQL Agent jobs and job steps in SQL Server. Under Intelligent Performance in the left menu, select Query Performance Insight. The architecture also allows the database to scale by adding more nodes. With Sharding, records are. NET Core application. Not anymore. 5. sql. I believe the database connection is created lazily in EF, and you are able to set the connection string up until the EF first needs to actually connect to the database. In this article. Discover the secure, intelligent database products of Azure SQL and SQL in cloud. What is database sharding? Database sharding is the process of storing a large database across multiple machines. As such, what would be the difference. You can see that, for both tables, rows with site_id=1 are stored on worker 1. Based on industry-standard sharding. At the logical server level, you can administer logins, firewall rules, auditing rules, threat detection policies, and auto-failover groups. In SQL Database, multiple resource pools and workload groups , with resource limits set at both pool and group levels, provide a balanced Database-as-a-Service . Existing Azure SQL Database Federation installations can be migrated to Elastic Database by using the Federations Migration Utility. Database sharding overcomes this limitation by splitting data into smaller chunks, called shards, and storing them across several. Configure threat detection to let Azure SQL Database identify suspicious activities such as SQL Injection or access from suspicious locations. Is this by design. Sharding: Horizontal Scaling in Azure SQL Database. NET developers to create applications that implement and use the pattern known as. Sharding Complete Tables to limit DB Size. For SQL Database (previously known as SQL Azure) you don't need a library for sharding instead you can do it directly with your database and let application to use ADO. The shard map manager is a special database that maintains global mapping information about all shards (databases) in a shard set. Open a command prompt and navigate to the directory where you downloaded. using and securing Sharding data. Applies to: Azure SQL Database. At its most basic level, database scalability can be divided into two types: Vertical scaling, or scaling up or down, where you increase or decrease computing power or databases as needed—either by changing performance levels or by using elastic database pools to automatically adjust to your workload demands. Fill in the information for your databases at the beginning of Program. Sharding in MySQL currently has several. The cloud services are limited by compute and size. To ensure peak performance, optimize your. For the first step, s elect “Publish to an existing Azure SQL logical server“. The challenges to scaling out relational database management systems are well known, and the patterns for sharding are well developed. Auto sharding or data sharding is needed when a dataset is too big to be stored in a single. Scaling out vs. DATABASE SHARDING. Download the Split-Merge packages. The tool must be run from a local machine. Data storage limits in Azure SQL Database have increased from 1. A database shard, or simply a shard, is a horizontal partition of data in a database or search engine. The PostgreSQL community has a roadmap to build sharding capabilities into native PostgreSQL in upcoming versions. In this article Overview. These tools include the management of shard maps (a database that tracks the tenants assigned to each shard), as well as initiating and tracking queries and management operations on. The following terms are defined for the Elastic Database tools. Oracle Sharding is a feature of Oracle Database that lets you automatically distribute and replicate data across a pool of Oracle databases that share no hardware or software. cs; This project extends the one described in Elastic DB Tools for Azure SQL - Entity Framework Integration by adding support for multi-tenant shard. The 4 TB database maxsize cannot be changed to 1 TB even if the actual storage used is below 1 TB. For example, the sample application creates new databases. In the case of specifying an Elastic Pool, Azure SQL Server, or Shard Map these will be enumerated to identify all databases present and then allow for job execution to occur. The cloud services are limited by compute and size. With a single database, each database is isolated, using a dedicated database engine. The default view of Query Performance Insight shows 24 hours of data. For your situation "have almost same data from different organizations. · Hi Rajesh, Sharding logic needs to be. The databases in the data tier can be of any Azure SQL Database version or edition. Open the wingtip-sa-catalog-<user> resource group and note the catalog server and database. When a database is created, it contains the default data sharding policy. Applies to: Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance As part of High Availability architecture, each single database or elastic pool database in the Premium and Business Critical service tier is automatically provisioned with a primary read-write replica and one or more secondary read-only replicas. using and securing Sharding data. Each shard is held on a separate database server instance, to spread load”. Database Sharding. I have used sharding and partitioning to overcome this issue. Part of Microsoft Azure Collective. The DDL for your specific need will vary depending on the indexes on the existing tables and whether you want to partition those. The scale operation will be executed by a PowerShell runbook inside of an Azure Automation account. On the Subscriptions page, select Resource providers under Settings. Azure PowerShell. Give the database a name and create a new administrator and password. Other than that, you may be moving past the designs for the Platform-as-a-Services model, and over to Infrastructure (meaning Virtual Machines). You can view the talk below, its about 45 minutes long and looks at all the aspects of. ; Select Yes for Allow Azure services and resources to access this server. 5. Accordingly, the A-M shard gradually accrues more data than the N-Z one, causing the application to slow down and stall out for a significant portion of your users. For general guidance about when to. The Shard Map database is a regular Azure SQL DB and should be created via the Azure portal front-end. Featured on Meta We're rolling back the. In addition, both geography restrictions and client confidentiality might be two other reasons for database sharding. You will then run JMeter load tests to. Azure SQL Database enables you to easily change resources (CPU power, memory, IO throughput, and storage) allocated to your databases. Every row will be in exactly one shard, and every shard can contain multiple rows. In the portal. Fill in the information for your databases at the beginning of Program. Database sharding is a type of horizontal partitioning that splits large databases into smaller components, which are faster and easier to manage. As I mentioned earlier in this guide, “sharding” is the process of distributing rows from one or more tables across multiple database instances on different servers. This is going to be using Azures SQL database. With Azure SQL Database, just specify the PRIMARY for all filegroups in the partition scheme. Sorted by: 4. 1. Database Sharding. SqlDatabase. In this article. You can use your existing MongoDB skills and continue to use your favorite MongoDB drivers, SDKs, and tools by. So, if you have a 5 DTUs and you go to 10 DTUs, you should (theoretically) get about twice the performance. 5ms. I want to have Azure SQL instances in different regions around the world so I. Elastic pools in Azure SQL Database enable SaaS developers to optimize the price. The following code assumes you're connected to the database called mySampleDataWarehouse. Applies to: Azure SQL Database. Sharing the Load. So in the Getting Started sample, the Customers and Orders table both contain a CustomerId column, and you can see that in DataDependentRoutingSample. However there comes a poi. 0 and . Class names may differ. 1. Auto sharding or data sharding is needed when a dataset is too big to be stored in a single. In this tutorial, you deploy and explore a sample multi-tenant SaaS application that is named Wingtip Tickets. This model allows packing large numbers of tenants into a single database, driving the cost-per-tenant down. Register database schema in shard map The database schema must be. By default create_distributed_table() makes 32 shards, as we can see by counting in the metadata. It cannot be uploaded and run from an Azure environment. 12 min read. Here are some of the benefits of a sharded database: Taking advantage of greater resources within the cloud on demand. Every Azure SQL database regardless of model or tier is associated with a logical server. Client is the official client library that allows ADO. This creates the shard map manager, and adds two shards to the server. The application will leverage an Azure Elastic Database Pool to support scaling out via Sharding. Stores possessing IDs of 2001 and greater go in the other. We are looking at either 1) shard via elastic database tools or 2) Azure Synapse MPP datawarehouse. Create the Server - The easiest way to create an Azure Server for use with the Elastic Scale Databases is to create a sample database by going through the steps in this post. To easily scale out databases on Azure SQL Database, use a shard map manager. This question is in a collective: a subcommunity defined by tags with relevant content and experts. A shard is an individual. NET based Data-Tier Application Framework (DacFx) APIs. . An Elastic Database job runs scheduled or ad hoc T-SQL scripts against all databases. To easily scale out databases on Azure SQL Database, use a shard map manager. In other words, use sharding techniques with SQL Azure only if you need it. Elastic Scale allows you to maintain many Azure SQL Server databases with one central point of reference for schema management, querying, reporting, and maintenance. In AWS, the long-standing PasS database service is called Amazon Relational Database Service (or RDS) . But Sql Server -- and the associated community of people writing things like blog posts and documentation -- don't call it sharding. Select Create to open the Select SQL deployment option pane. var dbContext = _dbContextFactory. Azure SQL Database serverless provides a solution to help address these challenges, but until now serverless has only been available in the General Purpose tier. SQL Azure will throttle you (meaning your database connection will be lost for a while) if you go beyond certain performance thresholds. Applies to: Azure SQL Database The split-merge tool lets you move data between sharded databases. Azure. The new Elastic Scale capabilities simplify the process of scaling out (and in) a cloud application’s data tier by streamlining development and management. Step #1: deploy Azure Automation account and update its modules. The documentation for shard management using the Elastic Database Tools seems to imply that all the database instances must be in the same Elastic Pool, and therefore on the same database VM instance. The feature provides recommendations related to. A logical server can be in a different region. In this article. There are really two approaches you can take with this: Azure SQL Data Warehouse.