What Is Azure SQL Database Edge

Azure SQL Database Edge is nothing but an optimized relational database engine that is specially designed for IoT and IoT Edge deployments. With the help of the Azure SQL Edge database, you can able to create excellent data storage and processing layer for different IoT applications.

Nevertheless, the Azure SQL database edge also helps you with the capability to analyze, stream, and process relational and non-relational data.

The interesting part is, Azure SQL database Edge is built on the SQL server database engine that provides the query processing capabilities and you can use the same T-SQL programming as SQL Server.

What are the available editions of Azure SQL Edge

Basically, there are two editions of Azure SQL Edge that are available as of now. Below are those two editions of the Azure SQL Edge database

Azure SQL Edge: This is especially for the production SKU and the SQL edge container is 64 GB memory and limited to 8 cores.
Azure SQL Edge Developer: As the name suggests, this is for the Development only SKU, Here the SQL Edge container is 32 GB memory and limited to 4 cores.

Azure SQL Edge Deployment Models

There are two deployment models that are supported by Azure SQL Edge. Those are as below

Disconnected deployment: With the help of the Disconnected deployment, you can pull the Azure SQL edge container images from the docker hub, and then you can deploy as a standalone docker container or a Kubernetes cluster
Connected deployment through Azure IoT Edge: Note that, you can find the Azure SQL edge in the Azure Marketplace and for the Azure IoT Edge, you can able to deploy it as a module.

Features Of Azure SQL Edge

Azure SQL edge provides us many features. Let’s discuss few key features of Azure SQL Edge database.

The first thing is, Azure SQL Edge database is generally available now.
Azure SQL edge database has an inbuilt streaming capability that actually helps you with complex event processing and real-time analytics.
Same way, Azure SQL edge also provides you the most demanding machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities.

What are the tools can be used to work with Azure SQL Edge

There are different tools that can be used to work with the Azure SQL Edge. Below are the lists of few key tools that you can use to work with Azure SQL Edge.

Azure Portal
Visual Studio Code
Azure Data Studio
SQL Server Management Studio(SSMS)
Visual Studio

Azure SQL Database Edge Pricing

The pricing structure for the Azure SQL Edge is as below

Details of Product	Per month	1 Year	3 Years
Azure SQL Database Edge	You need to pay $10.001/device per month	You need to pay $100 per device per year	You need to pay $60 per device per year

Azure SQL Edge VS SQL Server

Azure SQL Edge	SQL Server
Azure SQL Database Edge is an excellent relational database engine that is specially designed for IoT and IoT Edge deployments.	SQL Server is an RDMS that comes with an assortment of add-on services. Since it is a database server, it is basically a software product with the main objective to store and retrieve data as requested by other software applications.
Azure SQL database edge also helps you with the capability to analyze, stream, and process relational and non-relational data.	The database size for SQL Server depends on the size of the Virtual Machine. SQL Server instances support up to 256 TB of storage.
	By default, SQL Server infrastructure offers fault-tolerance and high availability for the Virtual Machines.

How To Deploy Azure SQL Edge Using Azure Portal

Well, We can deploy Azure SQL Edge using Docker or Azure Portal. We will discuss here How to deploy Azure SQL Edge through Azure Portal. As part of the functionality, you need to consider the below as the Prerequisites.

Prerequisites

You must have an Azure subscription or Azure account. If you don’t have an Azure account till now, you can create an Azure Free account now.
You must create an Azure IoT Hub.
You need to create an Azure IoT Edge Device.

Creating An Azure IoT Hub

Follow the below steps to create an Azure IoT Hub in Azure Portal.

Log in to the Azure Portal (https://portal.azure.com/).
Once you have logged in to the Azure Portal, search for the IoT Hub. Click on the Search result IoT Hub as highlighted below.

3. On the IoT Hub page, click on the + Create button to create the IoT hub.

4. Provide the below details on the IoT hub page.

Subscription: Select a valid subscription that you want to use here to create an Azure IoT Hub.
Resource Group: You can select an existing resource group or if you don’t have a resource created as of now, you can click on the Create new link to create a new resource group.
Region: Provide the region.
IoT hub name: Provide a unique name for the IoT hub.

Click on the Next : Networking > button to go to the Networking tab.

How to Create An Azure IoT Hub in Azure Portal

5. On the Networking tab, You can choose the default Public endpoint (all networks) or Private endpoint based on your requirement. Click on the Next: Management > button to go to the Management tab.

How to Create An Azure IoT Hub using Azure Portal

6. On the management tab, provide the below details.

Pricing and scale tier: Choose the pricing tier based on your requirement.
Number of S1 IoT hub units: Choose this option based on your need.
Defender for IoT: You can enable this option if you want to enable extra protection for your IoT Hub.

You can click on the Next: Tags> button to go to the Tags tab.

How to Create An Azure IoT Hub Azure Portal

On Tags tab, you can mention the name and value pairs to tag the resources or you can leave the option as it is and then click on the Review + Create button.

Now, it will validate all the options provided by you, and then the Create button will be enabled. You can click on the Create button on the next screen to create the IoT hub.

It will take a few seconds and will show you that Your deployment is complete. Click on the Go to resource button to navigate to the IoT hub that we have just created just before.

How to Create An Azure IoT Hub through Azure Portal

This is How To Create An Azure IoT Hub using Azure Portal.

Creating An Azure IoT Edge Device

You can easily create an Azure IoT Edge device now.

Now, we have created the Azure IoT Hub and the Azure IoT Edge Device. Now, the time to create the Target Devices for IoT Edge Module. Follow the below steps

Creating Azure SQL Database Edge

Log in to the Azure Portal (https://portal.azure.com/).
Search for the Azure SQL Edge and then click on the search result Azure SQL Edge.

On the Target Devices for IoT Edge Module page, Provide the below details

Subscription: Provide a valid subscription.
IoT Hub: Select the name of the IoT Hub that we have created above.
Deploy to a device: Select the option if you want to deploy to a device.
IoT Edge Device Name: Provide the name of the IoT Edge device that we have created just above. Then you can click on the Find Device button.

Finally, click on the Create button.

You may also like following the below articles

Wrapping Up

In this article, we have discussed, What Is Azure SQL Database Edge, What are the available editions of Azure SQL Edge, Azure SQL Edge Deployment Models, Features Of Azure SQL Edge. Along with this, we have also discussed What are tools can be used to work with Azure SQL Edge, Azure SQL Database Edge Pricing, Azure SQL Edge VS SQL Server, How To Deploy Azure SQL Edge Using Azure Portal, Creating An Azure IoT Edge Device, Creating Azure SQL Database Edge. Hope you have enjoyed this article !!!