Azure SQL history
Software and services for relational databases have been a large part of the Microsoft product offering over the years. Before you learn about Azure SQL and where it's going, let's briefly consider where it started.
Launch of Windows Azure
At the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in 2008, Microsoft's Chief Software Architect at the time, Ray Ozzie, announced the new cloud computing operating system: Windows Azure. One of the five key components of the Azure Services Platform launch was Microsoft SQL Services. From the beginning, SQL has been a large part of Azure. SQL Azure was created to provide a cloud-hosted version of SQL Server. Windows Azure was later renamed to Microsoft Azure, SQL Azure was renamed to Azure SQL, and both have since dramatically expanded services.
Evolution of database services on Azure
Let's look at an early explanation of Azure SQL from 2010:
Azure SQL is a cloud database offering that Microsoft provides as part of the Azure cloud computing platform. Unlike other editions of SQL Server, you do not need to provision hardware for, install or patch Azure SQL; Microsoft maintains the platform for you. You also do not need to architect a database installation for scalability, high availability, or disaster recovery as these features are provided automatically by the service. Any application that uses Azure SQL must have Internet access in order to connect to the database.
This explanation remains valid, but the capabilities around security, performance, availability, and scale have been enhanced greatly. Azure SQL has evolved over the years to include Azure virtual machines, managed instances, and several options for databases. There are now multiple deployment options that have the flexibility to scale to your needs. There have been more than seven million deployments of some form of Azure SQL. The architecture for Azure SQL has also evolved to meet the growing demands of applications. For example, the architecture introduced in 2014 set the stage for new possibilities like elastic database pools, vCore choices, business-critical deployments, hyperscale, and serverless architectures.
Since 2008, SQL Server and Azure SQL have both evolved to become more available, scalable, and performant to meet the demands of any application. The database services offered have expanded from SQL Server to include open-source databases like Azure Database for PostgreSQL and Azure Database for MariaDB.