Question

Difficulty: EasyAzure Database Services (Relational, Non-Relational, and Cosmos DB)

A company is planning to deploy a web application and needs a database service. The application requires a non-relational (NoSQL) database to store unstructured user profile documents. A developer proposes using Azure SQL Database to meet this requirement. Why is this proposal incorrect?

  1. Azure SQL Database is a relational database service, not a non-relational (NoSQL) database service.Answer
  2. B
    Azure SQL Database is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering, which means the customer is responsible for operating system patching.
  3. C
    Azure SQL Database is a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering, and customers cannot host custom application databases on it.
  4. D
    Azure Cosmos DB is the only database in Azure that supports traditional relational SQL schemas, so Azure SQL Database cannot be used.

Answer

Azure SQL Database is a relational database service, not a non-relational (NoSQL) database service.
The correct option is correct because Azure SQL Database is a relational database service built on SQL Server. It is designed for structured tables and relations, not for storing non-relational (NoSQL) document data models. For NoSQL document workloads, Azure Cosmos DB is the appropriate service.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the application requirements.
The application requires a non-relational (NoSQL) database for unstructured document storage.
Identifying the data structure requirement (non-relational/NoSQL) is the first step in selecting the correct database service.
2
Evaluate Azure SQL Database against the requirements.
Azure SQL Database is a relational database engine.
Evaluating the proposed service shows it is designed for relational tabular data, making it unsuitable for a pure NoSQL document database requirement.

Key Concept

Azure SQL Database is a relational database service (PaaS) designed for structured data with relationships, whereas Azure Cosmos DB is a non-relational (NoSQL) database service designed for unstructured and semi-structured data.
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