SQL Azure DatabaseUnder the hood

Jeff CurrierSenior Dev LeadMicrosoft Corporation

SVC12

Agenda> Service Review> SQL Azure Architecture & Workflows> Service Resilience> Service Monitoring > Attack Vectors/Security considerations> Wrap up

Review – Conceptual model> Subscription

> Used to map service usage to the billing instrument

> Users may have many subscriptions> Logical Server

> Akin to SQL Server Instance> Unit of Geo-Location & Billing> 1:1 Subscription & server

> User Database> Restricted T-SQL surface area> Additional catalog views provided e.g.

sys.billing, sys.firewall_rules, etc

SQL Azure Network TopologyApplicatio

nInternetAzure Cloud

LB

TDS (tcp)

TDS (tcp)

TDS (tcp)

Applications use standard SQL client libraries: ODBC, ADO.Net, PHP, …

Load balancer forwards ‘sticky’ sessions to TDS protocol tier

Security Boundary

SQL SQL SQL SQL SQLSQL

Gateway

Gateway

Gateway

Gateway

Gateway

Gateway

Gateway: TDS protocol gateway, enforces AUTHN/AUTHZ policy; proxy to CloudDB

Scalability and Availability: Fabric, Failover, Replication, and Load balancing

TDS Gateway> TDS Listener

> Capability negotiation> TDS Packet inspection> Security

> Logical->Physical mapping via metadata catalog

> Enabler for multi-tenet capabilities> Isolation layer

TDS Gateway LayeringGateway Process

TDS Endpoint AdminSvc Endpoint

Protocol Parser

Provisioning Endpoint

Business Logic Services

Connection Mgmt

SQL SQL SQL SQL SQLSQL

Scalability and Availability: Fabric, Failover, Replication, and Load balancing

Provisioning > Subscription

> Coordinated across all Azure services> Executed in parallel w/retries

> Server> May occur between data centers> Point where Geo-location is established

> Database> Always occurs within a single data center> Cross node operations executed during this

process e.g. add new db to sys.databases on the master

Server Provisioning> Driven by administrator Portal> Provision request is sent to

Gateway>Metadata catalog entry created>DNS record (CNAME) created

within LiveDNS service>Master DB created

> On completion metadata catalog updated

Datacenter (Sub-Region)

SQL Azure Server Provisioning

Customer Browser

Portal LB

1

Front-end Node

Live DNS ClusterLive DNS

Svc

2 4

Gateway

Backend Node

Mgmt. Service

s

SQL ServerFabric

Backend Node Backend Node

Mgmt. Service

s

SQL ServerFabric

Mgmt. Service

s

SQL ServerFabric

Front-end NodeGateway

Front-end NodeAdmin Portal

Front-end NodeAdmin Portal

3

Gateway LB5

6

7

Database Provisioning> Gateway performs stateful TDS packet

inspection> Picks out subset of messages> Parses out args for create database

> Makes entry into Gateway metadata catalog> Unused replica set located and reserved> Replica set (UserDB) is prepped for use > Metadata catalog is updated

SQL Azure Database provisioningTDS GatewayFront-end Node

Protocol Parser

Gateway Logic

Master Cluster

Master Node

Master Node Components

1

23

5 67

Scalability and Availability: Fabric, Failover, Replication, and Load balancingScalability and Availability: Fabric, Failover, Replication, and Load balancing

4

8

TDS Session

Backend Node 1SQL Instance

SQL DB

Backend Node 2SQL Instance

SQL DB

Backend Node 3SQL Instance

SQL DB

SQL Azure Login Process> Login request arrives at the Gateway> Gateway locates MasterDb & UserDb

replica sets> Credentials are validated against

MasterDb> TDS session is opened to UserDB and

requests are forwarded

SQL Azure Login ProcessTDS GatewayFront-end Node

Protocol Parser

Gateway Logic

Global Partition Map

Master Node

Master Node Components

1

2

4 5

6

Scalability and Availability: Fabric, Failover, Replication, and Load balancingScalability and Availability: Fabric, Failover, Replication, and Load balancing

3

7

TDS Session

Backend Node 1SQL Instance

SQL DB

Backend Node 2SQL Instance

SQL DB

Backend Node 3SQL Instance

SQL DB

8

Service Resilience> Provisioning

> State machines used to coordinate activities across node (and datacenter) boundaries

> Failed provisioning attempts cleaned automatically after 10 minutes

> Login> Failovers during the login will be transparent

(<30 seconds)> Metadata catalog refresh occurs automatically

> Active Session> Surface as connection drops (due to state)

Monitoring Service Health> Metrics

> Cluster wide performance counters gather key metrics on the service

> Used to alert Operations to issues before they become a problem> Early warning system> Code issues> Capacity warnings

> Health> Exercises the service routinely looking for problems> When issues are encountered runs deep diagnostics

> Network connectivity at the node level> Validate all dependent services (Live DNS, Live ID, etc)

> Monitoring from other MSFT DC’s> Validates accessibility from multiple geographic locations> Alerts fired automatically when test jobs fail

Security/Attack Considerations> Service

> Secure channel required (SSL)> Denial Of Service trend tracking> Packet Inspection

> Server > IP allow list (Firewall) > Idle connection culling> Generated server names

> Database> Disallow the most commonly attacked user

id’s (SA, Admin, root, guest, etc) > Standard SQL Authn/Authz mode

Wrap Up> Reviewed SQL Azure Architecture &

Workflows> Provisioning (Server & DB)> Login

> Service Resilience & Health> Failure detection and correction> How we determine service health

> Security considerations> Attack vectors and mitigations

> Questions?

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