Database Cloud offering as PAAS is one of the giant leap in database world. There are three ways you can have a SQL Server database as PAAS solution in Azure.
Azure SQL Database
Azure Database in Elastic Pool
Azure SQL Managed instance
- As a single database with its own set of resources managed via a logical server
- As a pooled database in an elastic pool with a shared set of resources managed via a logical server
- As a part of a collection of databases known as a managed instance that contains system and user databases and sharing a set of resources

SQL Database shares its code base with the Microsoft SQL Server database engine. With Microsoft’s cloud-first strategy, the newest capabilities of SQL Server are released first to SQL Database, and then to SQL Server itself. This approach provides you with the newest SQL Server capabilities with no overhead for patching or upgrading – and with these new features tested across millions of databases.
We have many advantages in Azure SQL Database when comparing to SQL Server instance.
SQL Database delivers predictable performance with multiple resource types, service tiers, and compute sizes that provides dynamic scalability with no downtime, built-in intelligent optimization, global scalability and availability, and advanced security options and everything comes with very minimal or No Administration. These capabilities allow you to focus on rapid app development and accelerating your time to market, rather than allocating precious time and resources to managing virtual machines and infrastructure.
The SQL Database service is currently in 38 data centers around the world, with more data centers coming online regularly, which enables you to run your database in a data center near you.
Upcoming articles would give more details on Configuration, Availability, Security and backup features SQL PAAS Databases.
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