Friday, September 12, 2014

SIP

Dear Friends,

Click here to view the last post on "How to Create Database and Migration in SQL Azure".Along with learning return is also most important factor. Before stepping a head here return means the amount you invested and of course learning means not SQL, but yes it’s SIP.

SIP, stands for Systematic Investment Plan. Now what is SIP??

Is it investing in some plan systematically as the name states? Yes, it is investing in some plan systematically & that too in a disciplined manner just like RD Recurring Deposit (which are offered by the banks).

Now a question here might be if RD is offered by banks then who provide SIP. Answer for that would be “we have fund houses (HDFC, Birla Sunlife, Franklin India and many more) who maintain the invested amount”. Before selecting any fund house kindly go through the past performance. Following we’ll see some facts about SIP:

1.       SIP is a Mutual Fund & it is subjected to Market.
2.       As traditional Mutual Fund provision us to invest into the market whole amount at a time but in SIP amount is invested every month.
3.       As said SIP is just like RD in terms on period. That is every month the said amount is deducted (Min Rs.500) and that much units are created into your account.

Brief about SIP & How does it work:

SIP is just as investment into some Mutual Fund (MF), but not like traditional one. Traditional MF, invest your lupsum money, whereas in SIP it will invest per month.
A person who is having long term horizon of at least more than 3-4 Years should consider investing into this. On Contrary if the horizon is less than this one should opt for RD, Debt Funds, Short term liquid funds, etc...

We can start the SIP online or else through Agent too.

Investments are never too late, so start investing as soon as you realize it.

I personally do follow the below thought, which was said by Warren Buffett’s –
Don’t save what is left after spending; rather spend what is left after saving.

Last but not the least “Mutual Fund investments are subject to market risk. Please read the offer document carefully before investing.” 


Enjoy!!!

Monday, September 8, 2014

How to create Database and Migration in SQL Azure

Hi Friends,

As we have seen the welcome note on “SQL Azure” here. This is just a continuation of that post.
Here we’ll see how to create a Server, Database as well as how to authenticate the user to access the Database in Azure.

1.       Connect to windows.azure.com.
2.       Click Subscription >> Then “Create”.
3.       Select the location (Region where you wanted to deploy your Azure Database).
4.       Create Admin Login ID & set the password.
5.       Check “Allow other windows Azure services to access this service”.
Add the list of IP’s which can able to access the server.
6.       Click “Finish”.

Once it is done. A server name will be created, which one can use to connect and create a Database.

How to create Azure Database:

1.       Once the server is configured, connect to the server. Here we can able to see only “Master” Database (Master Database is not chargeable).
2.       Under Database >> Create >> Database_Name >> Select “Edition”.
3.       Database is created.

How to migrate Other Databases to Azure:

1.       If you are planning to migrate any other RDBMS to Azure, we need to first migrate it to MS SQL 2008 then only we can migrate to Azure.
2.       Once we have migrated to generate script of Database using Azure Tool (Reason all the features are not supported if we generate the script from SQL Server).
3.       SQL Azure >> Migration Wizard >> Generate Script.
4.       Copy the script and run it to create Azure Database.
5.       Populate data using either SSIS or SQL Azure migration wizard

Max size of DB is limited to 50 GB. We can connect to windows azure portal to view the bill.

Note: Above points are my understanding from the session, there might be some flaws. Looking forward for your note to correct me if I’m wrong anywhere.   

Thanks for reading the article. Stay Tuned.


Friday, September 5, 2014

Introduction on SQL Azure

Hi Friends,

Last week I've attended a session on “SQL Azure”. So thought of sharing the key points on the blog for our all reference. Till before attending the session, it was just a word for me “AZURE” with zero knowledge on this technology (or rather my understanding was just limited to “it is something related to Cloud”).
Following are some points I’d like to share which I learned from the session:

i.    We can consider SQL Serve Azure (SSA) just like a SQL Server (SS) Version (Cloud version). 
     It is the light version of SS.
ii.   SSA is Scalable, HA, RDBMS and Secure.
iii. SSA runs only on “Windows Azure Platform”.
iv.  One can connect the server through Azure Portal as well as SSMS.
v.    SSA has two Editions. Web Edition and Business Edition with 5 GB and 50 GB DB limit     respectively.
vi.   Data can be migrated from any other RDBMS such as Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server, etc...
vii. Pricing is based on the Usage (DB Size). Large the DB size is more your billing would be.

Difference between SQL Server (SS) and SQL Server Azure (SSA):

1.  Only SQL Authentication is possible in SSA; whereas SQL as well as Windows Authentication is also possible in SS.
2.  While making login Azure does not allow login name like sa, admin, guest, administrator and root. There is no as such restriction in SS.
3.  No CPU, CAL licensing is involved in SSA like SS; rather billing is done based on consumption (More the DB Size more the bill will be).
4.  Since SSA is a light version many features are not present in SSA compared to SS.
5.  SSA table must have Cluster Index whereas it’s not compulsory in SS.
6.  Only Master DB is present in SSA on contrary Master, Model, MSDB & Tempdb is present in SS.
7.  Max size of DB in SSA is 50 GB; whereas in SS it’s in TB’s.
8.  Transaction should stay in single DB; whereas in SS it can run adhoc queries.
9.  As it is in Azure only TCP\IP protocol is supported; where as in SS it supports many protocols.
10. In Azure, Application cannot go down unexpectedly.

Guys this is just a welcome note on SQL Azure.  There are lots of things to learn in SSA. Will keep on posting as and when I‘ll have the content along with the necessary snapshots.

Note: Above points are my understanding from the session, there might be some flaws. Looking forward for your note to correct me if I’m wrong anywhere.   

Thanks for reading the article. Stay Tuned.