In Azure SQL, what is the difference between a standard eDTU and a premium eDTU given it costs significantly more?

4
votes

Based on Microsoft's Azure SQL pricing chart a standard elastic pool of 100 eDTU's costs $223/month, whereas a premium elastic database pool of 125 eDTU's costs $697/month.

Given the almost 3 times price difference, what is the difference between the performance of a standard eDTU and a premium eDTU?

Or am I just paying a higher price for the ability to use more eDTU's for a single database, a larger max database size and longer point-in-time restore?

2
azure-sql-database

2 Answers

5
votes

In addition to the higher burst limit per database (1000 instead of 100 eDTU), premium elastic pool tier provides several additional features like

  • Active geo replication (ability to set up readonly secondaries)
  • Longer point-in-time restore capability
  • Premium tier eDTUs also provide significantly higher IO capability compared to standard and basic tiers.

Some distinctions are described in detail here

-- Srini Acharya

2
votes

The primary distinction between Standard pools and Premium elastic pools is the number of eDTUs that any single database in the pool can burst to. In the case of Standard pools, the burst limit is 100 DTUs, and in the case of Premium pools the burst limit is 1000 DTUs.