Amazon RDS or Azure SQL Database

Has anyone used Epicor with a managed relational database service rather than a traditional VM running Windows with SQL Server installed?

I am interested in using this for a testing server but I’m not sure if this is even allowed by Epicor.

Thanks.

Hey Brad,

As Public Cloud users (Dedicated Tenancy), we are running in Azure. I wonder how SQL is set up for us?

:thinking:

Azure SQL is not currently supported. Currently the Epicor SaaS offering is SQL in a VM.

We have investigated Azure SQL (DB as a service) NUMEROUS times over the years as MSFT has told us they solved their latency issues with Azure SQL but we have yet to see an offering where they truly have. The latest iteration of this is the Ultra SSD offering announced this last week - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-ultra-ssd-the-next-generation-of-azure-disks-technology-preview/

While this is currently only an offering for SQL in a VM, I assume it’s only a matter of time until MSFT applies the new tech (which IS slick) to other offerings.The pace of Azure innovation is stunning and one of the reasons we announced the move of SaaS to Azure earlier this year. (I blinked, there goes five more Azure announcements).
One thing still open as well is how to handle SSRS reporting in an Azure PAAS world if not in a VM. MSFT has been silent on future plans in that area so that remains an open discussion with MSFT.

Rest assured as we work thru Azure SQL issues with MSFT, you will be informed if MSFT solves the list of issues we have with the offering.

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This is so true. To keep up with all of the announcements, I subscribed to one of Microsoft’s podcasts: “Azure Friday.” They run about ten minutes so they are a nice mental palate cleanser if you need one.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/videos/azure-friday/

Mark W.

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Thank you for this detailed reply - including reference links. The candidness and transparency you and other Epicor employees show is greatly appreciated!

I am watching what Amazon and Microsoft do in their Canadian regions closely as having our data in Canada is important to us.

Is there a good spot to watch for this information coming out as Epicor and Microsoft continue their partnership?

That’s one of the struggles to balance the geeky and the business domains.

One of the things I love about Epicor is how we try to do the due diligence in bringing best practices to you simplified up. That’s the case whether it be for techy, geeky things or more often, the business related depth of features in a large suite like ERP. Sure we can argue over whether x or y is correct and one of the goals we have added to the roadmap is making things more flexible while still being prescriptive (pit of success).

As one of the geeks in the company, this means balancing every spike and investigation of a new technology as appropriate. How we bring that to market and abstract that so you should not HAVE to care is an interesting discussion and impact on existing abilities even a higher concern. It’s not that we don’t want to share geeky details but do you need to care? We have tools in place for the straight forward aspects.

Our public cloud offering uses Azure, sure. You don’t have to go into the Azure Portal to manage anything though. You don’t need to deal with the complexity of Azure AD for application security, Key Vault for secret management, DB backup plans, scale out, DR, etc. Some things you can opt into as you need - Azure AD is a good example. More layers are coming as we evolve our cloud offerings. That doesn’t mean you need to be an expert in Machine Learning to take advantage of EVA for example.

With that simplification as a goal, how do you balance discussing that next layer under the functionality in a meaningful way? Blogs, tech whitepapers, etc to evangelize the platforms? It’s something we are struggling to do but community outreach like EUG and E10Help are the best ways for now at an informal level. Maybe someday, there will be a need to have that open discussion in a different form.

As a technologist, unfortunately the predominant ask is to show less detail coming from the industry. Make it simpler and do the work automatically or hide the complexity. SaaS is growing at an astonishing rate in the industry and at Epicor. Do more for us without worrying about the details is more the market trend. We don’t go to that extreme but we do try to avoid burying you in the tech details of everything. These days the pace of tech change is so severe you need to balance that. In the meanwhile, keep poking us here and in EUG.

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