So many choices: which platform should you choose?

So far in this chapter, we have outlined several deployment scenarios for SQL Server on Linux in Azure. In this section, you will understand your platform choices and some of the decision points to help you decide which is best for your scenario. As a developer, it's important that you consider the platform your application will run on.

Which base operating system?

When using IaaS VMs, you have the choice of selecting the base operating system you want to deploy. While deciding the base system, there are two key elements: the technical requirements and the skills of the organization. The technical requirements of the application are something that can surface pretty easily during the analysis phase of building a system architecture. In this section, I'm going to focus on operations and costs—two things that are often forgotten when developing system architectures.

Operations and maintenance

When working...