What is Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server?

APPLIES TO: Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server

This article provides an overview and introduction to the core concepts of the flexible server deployment model. For information on the appropriate deployment option for your workload, see choosing the right MySQL server option in Azure.

Azure Database for MySQL flexible server is a relational database service in the Microsoft cloud based on the MySQL Community Edition (available under the GPLv2 license) database engine, versions 5.6 (retired), 5.7, and 8.0. Azure Database for MySQL flexible server delivers:

• Zone redundant and same zone high availability.
• Maximum control with the ability to select your scheduled maintenance window.
• Data protection using automatic backups and point-in-time restore for up to 35 days.
• Automated patching and maintenance for underlying hardware, operating system, and database engine to keep the service secure and up to date.
• Predictable performance, using inclusive pay-as-you-go pricing.
• Elastic scaling within seconds.
• Cost optimization controls with low-cost burstable SKU and the ability to stop/start the server.
• Enterprise-grade security, industry-leading compliance, and privacy to protect sensitive data at rest and in motion.
• Monitoring and automation to simplify management and monitoring for large-scale deployments.
• Industry-leading support experience.

These capabilities require almost no administration and are all provided at no extra cost. They allow you to focus on rapid app development and accelerate your time to market rather than allocating precious time and resources to managing virtual machines and infrastructure. In addition, you can continue to develop your application with the open-source tools and platform of your choice to deliver the speed and efficiency your business demands without learning new skills.

Overview

Azure Database for MySQL flexible server is a fully managed production-ready database service designed for more granular control and flexibility over database management functions and configuration settings. The flexible server architecture allows users to opt for high availability within a single availability zone and across multiple availability zones. Flexible servers provide better cost optimization controls with the ability to stop/start the server, and burstable compute tier, ideal for workloads that don't need full-compute capacity continuously. Azure Database for MySQL flexible server also supports reserved instances, allowing you to save up to 63% in cost, which is ideal for production workloads with predictable compute capacity requirements. The service supports the community version of MySQL 5.7 and 8.0. The service is generally available today in various Azure regions.

The flexible server deployment option offers three compute tiers: Burstable, General Purpose, and Business Critical. Each tier offers different compute and memory capacities to support your database workloads. You can build your first app on a burstable tier for a few dollars a month and then adjust the scale to meet the needs of your solution. Dynamic scalability enables your database to respond to rapidly changing resource requirements transparently. You only pay for the resources you need and only when needed. See Compute and Storage for details.

Flexible servers are best suited for

• Ease of deployment, simplified scaling, and low database management overhead for backups, high availability, security, and monitoring.
• Application developments requiring a community version of MySQL with better control and customizations.
• Production workloads with same-zone, zone-redundant high availability, and managed maintenance windows.
• Simplified development experience.
• Enterprise-grade security, compliance, and privacy.

For the latest updates on Azure Database for MySQL flexible server, refer to What's new in Azure Database for MySQL flexible server.

Free 12-month offer

With an Azure free account, you can use Azure Database for MySQL flexible server for free for 12 months with monthly limits of up to:

• 750 hours of Burstable B1MS instance, enough hours to run a database instance continuously each month.
• 32 GB storage and 32 GB backup storage.

You can use this offer to develop and deploy Azure Database applications for MySQL flexible server. To learn how to create and use Azure Database for MySQL flexible server for free using Azure free account, refer to this tutorial.

High availability within and across availability zones

Azure Database for MySQL flexible server allows configuring high availability with automatic failover. The high availability solution is designed to ensure that committed data is never lost due to failures and to improve overall uptime for your application. When high availability is configured, flexible server automatically provisions and manages a standby replica. You're billed for the provisioned compute and storage for the primary and secondary replica. There are two high-availability architectural models:

• Zone Redundant High Availability (HA): This option is preferred for complete isolation and infrastructure redundancy across multiple availability zones. It provides highest level of availability, but it requires you to configure application redundancy across zones. Zone redundant HA is preferred when you want to achieve highest level of availability against any infrastructure failure in the availability zone and where latency across the availability zone is acceptable. Zone redundant HA is available in subset of Azure regions where the region supports multiple Availability Zones and Zone redundant Premium file shares are available.

• Same-Zone High Availability (HA): This option is preferred for infrastructure redundancy with lower network latency as both primary and standby server are in the same availability zone. It provides high availability without configuring application redundancy across zones. Same-Zone HA is preferred when you want to achieve highest level of availability within a single Availability zone with the lowest network latency. Same-Zone HA is available in all Azure regions where you can create Azure Database for MySQL flexible server instances.

For more information, see high availability concepts.

Automated patching with managed maintenance window

The service performs automated patching of the underlying hardware, OS, and database engine. The patching includes security and software updates. For MySQL engine, minor version upgrades are also included in the planned maintenance release. Users can configure the patching schedule to be system-managed or define their custom schedule. During the maintenance schedule, the patch is applied, and the server might require a restart as part of the patching process to complete the update. With the custom schedule, users can make their patching cycle predictable and choose a maintenance window with minimum impact on the business. The service follows a monthly release schedule for continuous integration and release.

See Scheduled Maintenance for more information.

Automatic backups

The Azure Database for MySQL flexible server service automatically creates server backups and stores them in user-configured locally redundant or geo-redundant storage. Backups can be used to restore your server to any point in time within the backup retention period. The default retention period is seven days, but it can be optionally configured between 1 and 35 days. All backups are encrypted using AES 256-bit encryption.

See Backup concepts for more information.

Network Isolation

To connect to Azure Database for MySQL flexible server, you have two networking options: private access (VNet integration) and public access (allowed IP addresses).

• Private access (VNet Integration) – You can deploy your Azure Database for MySQL flexible server instance into your Azure Virtual Network. Azure virtual networks provide private and secure network communication. Resources in a virtual network can communicate through private IP addresses.

  Choose the virtual network Integration option if you want the following capabilities:

  • Connect from Azure resources in the same virtual network to your Azure Database for MySQL flexible server instance using private IP addresses.
  • Use VPN or ExpressRoute to connect from non-Azure resources to your Azure Database for MySQL flexible server instance.
  • No public endpoint.

• Public access (allowed IP addresses) – You can deploy your Azure Database for MySQL flexible server instance with a public endpoint. The public endpoint is a publicly resolvable DNS address. The phrase "allowed IP addresses" refers to a range of IPs you choose to give permission to access your server. These permissions are called firewall rules.

See Networking concepts for more information.

Adjust performance and scale within seconds

Azure Database for MySQL flexible server is available in three service tiers: Burstable, General Purpose, and Business Critical. The Burstable tier is best suited for low-cost development and low concurrency workloads that don't need full-compute capacity continuously. General Purpose and Business Critical are better suited for production workloads requiring high concurrency, scale, and predictable performance. You can build your first app on a small database for a few dollars a month and then seamlessly adjust the scale to meet the needs of your solution. The storage scaling is online and supports storage autogrowth. Azure Database for MySQL flexible server enables you to provision additional IOPS up to 80 K IOPs above the complimentary IOPS limit independent of storage. Using this feature, you can increase or decrease the number of IOPS provisioned based on your workload requirements at any time. Dynamic scalability enables your database to respond to rapidly changing resource requirements transparently. You only pay for the resources you consume.

For more information, see Compute and Storage concepts.

Scale out your read workload with up to 10 read replicas

MySQL is one of the popular database engines for running internet-scale web and mobile applications. Our customers use it for online education, video streaming, digital payment solutions, e-commerce platforms, gaming services, news portals, and government and healthcare websites. These services are required to serve and scale as the web or mobile application traffic increases.

On the applications side, the application is typically developed in Java or PHP and migrated to run on Azure virtual machine scale sets or Azure App Services or are containerized to run on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Using a virtual machine scale set with App Service or AKS as the underlying infrastructure simplifies application scaling by instantaneously provisioning new VMs and replicating the stateless components of applications to cater to the requests, but often, the database ends up being a bottleneck as a centralized stateful component.

The read replica feature allows you to replicate data from an Azure Database for MySQL flexible server instance to a read-only server. You can replicate from the source server to up to 10 replicas. Replicas are updated asynchronously using the MySQL engine's native binary log (binlog) file position-based replication technology. You can use a load balancer proxy solution like ProxySQL to seamlessly scale out your application workload to read replicas without any application refactoring cost.

For more information, see Read Replica concepts.

Set up hybrid or multicloud data synchronization with data-in replication

Data-in replication allows you to synchronize data from an external MySQL server into Azure Database for MySQL flexible server. The external server can be on-premises, in virtual machines, Azure Database for MySQL single server, or a database service hosted by other cloud providers. Data-in replication is position-based on the binary log (binlog) file. The main scenarios to consider about using Data-in replication are:

• Hybrid Data Synchronization
• Multicloud Synchronization
• Minimal downtime migration to Azure Database for MySQL flexible server

For more information, see Data-in replication concepts.

Stop/Start server to optimize cost

Azure Database for MySQL flexible server allows you to stop and start servers on demand to optimize cost. The compute tier billing stops immediately when the server is stopped. This functionality can allow you to have significant cost savings during development, testing, and time-bound predictable production workloads. The server remains in the stopped state for 30 days unless restarted sooner.

See Server concepts for more information.

Enterprise grade security, compliance, and privacy

Azure Database for MySQL flexible server uses the FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic module to store data at rest. Data, including backups and temporary files created while running queries, are encrypted. The service uses the AES 256-bit cipher included in Azure storage encryption, and the keys can be system-managed (default).

Azure Database for MySQL flexible server encrypts data in-motion with transport layer security enforced by default. Azure Database for MySQL flexible server by default supports encrypted connections using Transport Layer Security (TLS 1.2) and all incoming connections with TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 are denied. You can disable TSL/SSL enforcement by setting the require_secure_transport server parameter and then setting the minimum tls_version for your server.

For more information, see how to use encrypted connections to Azure Database for MySQL flexible server instances.

Azure Database for MySQL flexible server allows full-private access to the servers using Azure virtual network (virtual network) integration. Servers in Azure virtual network can only be reached and connected through private IP addresses. With virtual network integration, public access is denied and servers can't be reached using public endpoints.

See Networking concepts for more information.

Monitor and alerting

The Azure Database for MySQL flexible server has built-in performance monitoring and alerting features. All Azure metrics have a one-minute frequency, each providing 30 days of history. You can configure alerts on the metrics. Azure Database for MySQL flexible server exposes host server metrics to monitor resource utilization and allows configuring slow query logs. Using these tools, you can quickly optimize your workloads and configure your server for the best performance. Azure Database, which is a flexible MySQL server, allows you to visualize slow query and audit log data using Azure Monitor workbooks. With workbooks, you get a flexible canvas for analyzing data and creating rich visual reports within the Azure portal. Azure Database for MySQL flexible server provides three available workbook templates out of the box, including Server Overview, Auditing, and Query Performance Insights. Query Performance Insights workbook is designed to help you spend less time troubleshooting database performance by providing such information as:

• Top N long-running queries and their trends.
• The query details: view the query text and the execution history with minimum, maximum, average, and standard deviation query time.
• The resource utilization (CPU, memory, and storage).

In addition, you can use and integrate with community monitoring tools like Percona Monitoring and Management with Azure Database for MySQL flexible server.

See Monitoring concepts for more information.

Migration

Azure Database for MySQL flexible server runs the community version of MySQL. This allows full application compatibility and requires minimal refactoring costs to migrate existing applications developed on the MySQL engine to the Azure Database for the MySQL flexible server. Migration to Azure Database for MySQL flexible server can be performed using the following option:

Offline migrations

• Using Azure Data Migration Service when network bandwidth between source and Azure is good (for example: High-speed ExpressRoute). Learn more with step-by-step instructions - Migrate MySQL to Azure Database for MySQL flexible server offline using DMS - Azure Database Migration Service
• Use mydumper/myloader to use compression settings to efficiently move data over low speed networks (such as public internet). Learn more with step-by-step instructions Migrate large databases to Azure Database for MySQL flexible server using mydumper/myloader

Online or minimal downtime migrations

Use data-in replication with mydumper/myloader consistent backup/restore for initial seeding. Learn more with step-by-step instructions: Tutorial: Minimal Downtime Migration of Azure Database for MySQL single server to Azure Database for MySQL flexible server.

To migrate from Azure Database for MySQL single server to Azure Database for MySQL flexible server in five easy steps, refer to this blog.

For more information, see Select the right tools for migration to Azure Database for MySQL flexible server.

Azure regions

One advantage of running your workload in Azure is its global reach. Azure Database for MySQL flexible server is available today in the following Azure regions:

Feedback and support

For any questions or suggestions you might have about working with Azure Database for MySQL flexible server, consider the following points of contact:

• To contact Azure Support, file a ticket from the Azure portal.
• To fix an issue with your account, file a support request in the Azure portal.
• To provide feedback or to request new features, create an entry via UserVoice.

Related content

• Create an Azure Database for MySQL flexible server instance using Azure portal
• Create an Azure Database for MySQL flexible server instance using Azure CLI
• Manage an Azure Database for MySQL flexible server instance using the Azure CLI
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