Scale out scenarios with Azure Sql (geolocation)

2
votes

I have my Azure Sql database located in West Europe and are considering to have a database in the States also. Deploying my website in the states was easy, but this website then query the database in Europe, which gives delays.

What do people do in these cases? Having separate databases for different users could work I guess, but it then fails if a user normally on one server get routed to the other server, then his data is not in the database. Is there easy solutions to have the same data available in two azure SQL servers, and Azure maintain the data sync? What about conflicts when syncing?

1
azure

1 Answers

1
votes

It really depends on your requirements and how you implement routing. You can design your distributed application in a manner that user A, when authenticated always go the US server for instance. Even if he/she is currently in Europe or Asia.

If you want to sync everything everywhere, there a preview feature named "SQL Data Sync". It can sync data between multiple instance of SQL Server (including on-premises SQL Server installations). It is quite flexible in terms of configuring and options for syncing. But again, it really depends on application requirements. If I was building distributed system, I would not sync data across continents. Will design the app so that user specific data lives in only one Data Centre. this, of course is impossible if my user has access to a lot more data then just related to his/her profile.

The best option would be to keep user-specific data in user's designated Data Centre, and sync the data that must be available to all users at all locations.