Choosing Between a vCore Pricing Model and DTU-based Service Tiers

When choosing between vCore and DTU-based pricing tiers, consider the following.

Licensing

A vCore pricing model provides up to 30% cost savings by using existing on-premises SQL Server Standard or Enterprise licenses with software assurance. Therefore, if you are migrating an existing on-premises SQL Server infrastructure, consider opting for a vCore pricing model.

Flexibility

A DTU-based model bundles up the compute, IOPs, and storage under DTUs and provides a pre-configured range of varying DTU amounts for different types of workloads. It's therefore best suited for when you need a simple pre-configured option.

A vCore model provides flexibility when selecting compute and storage options and is therefore best when you want more transparency with control and over the compute and storage options.

Consider a scenario where you have a database with high compute requirements and low storage requirements; say, 125 DTUs with...