As Microsoft's Ignite[1] digital event kicks off today, the company is announcing a range of new capabilities in its database platforms as well as within Azure Synapse Analytics[2], its combination cloud data warehouse/data lake service. One big announcement is the preview of a new version of SQL Server, which I've covered in a separate post[3]. This post will cover the announced goodies in Azure Cosmos DB[4], Azure Database for MySQL[5] and PostgreSQL[6], Azure Managed Instance for Apache Cassandra[7], and Azure Synapse Analytics.
Also read: Microsoft's cloud-connected on-prem database: SQL Server 2022 rolls out in private preview[8]
Open source database, the SQL
Microsoft launched[9] its Azure Database for MySQL and PostgreSQL services to general availability (GA) in 2018. When those services began their preview the year before, the notion that Microsoft itself would support open source platforms that compete with its own SQL Server platform was big news. It made sense, though; if it's something Microsoft's customers want, and it drives cloud compute and storage revenue, it's in Microsoft's interest.
Also read: Microsoft cloud to SQL Server: Let's have an open (source) relationship[10]
Newsworthiness aside, though, the initial offerings were somewhat barebones. That's often the case with a 1.0 release, but Microsoft has steadily improved the offerings, including adding a hyperscale option on the Postgres side, made possible by the company's 2019 acquisition of Citus Data[11]. From that point, it was clear that Microsoft wanted to go further than just offering "vanilla" MySQL and Postgres.
Also read: Microsoft buys Citus Data[12]
Today, Microsoft is enhancing the offering with a deployment option, which it's dubbing Flexible Server[13]. As