Architecting the Cloud: How We Build a SQL Server PaaS at Scale

We are all familiar with consuming cloud-managed databases like Azure SQL DB or AWS RDS. You click a button, and minutes later, you have a highly available, backed-up, and monitored endpoint. But have you ever wondered what happens behind that button?

In this session, we flip the script and move from "Consumer" to "Provider." I will take you behind the scenes of building a SQL Server managed service from scratch. We will dissect the architecture required to deliver SQL Server as a scalable Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), moving beyond simple installation to full lifecycle automation.

We will dive into the engineering challenges of:

The Architecture: Decoupling the Control Plane (API/Logic) from the Data Plane (SQL Instances).

Automation at Scale: Handling "Day 2" operations like patching, backups, and minor version upgrades for thousands of instances without human intervention.

Resiliency: Orchestrating High Availability and Disaster Recovery programmatically.

Multi-Tenancy: managing the "noisy neighbor" problem and resource governance.

Whether you are an architect building a private cloud or a DBA curious about the internal mechanics of the services you use daily, this session will reveal what it really takes to deliver a cloud database product.

Real-World Context: This session is based on my current role as a Cloud Database Architect, where I engineer a SQL Server managed service. It offers a unique perspective on automation and architecture that goes beyond standard administration.

1- Analyze the architecture of a Managed Service: Understanding the separation of Control Plane and Data Plane. 2- Learn strategies for automating complex lifecycle events (patching, HA setup, scaling) across thousands of instances. 3- Explore the challenges of multi-tenancy, including resource governance and isolating "noisy neighbors."