Most cost effective way to add custom SQL server tables/database to Sitecore 9.1.1 PaaS installation

Question

I'm looking for some guidance please, we have a small (~500Mb) custom SQL server database that we need to run alongside the standard Sitecore 9.1.1 databases.

I'm also new to Azure so I apologies if I have missed something, but as far as I can see we need to create another resource group with another SQL database within that - the running costs being quoted seem very high given we don't hold a lot of data in there. I guess what I am looking to do is effectively create a new database within an existing Azure SQL server.

Failing that I wonder if an option is to simply create new tables within the Sitecore_core database. However, I'm not sure of the implications of this - is it possible/supported? I guess this would save costs if it's possible as we are just re-purposing the existing database that's already in the budget and paid for.

Any pointers appreciated!

Thanks

Answer 1

Not sure what the exact issue is, but as you mention you are new to Azure you might be missing some basic information.

Including tables in the Sitecore databases is not a good idea. Let that be clear.

You can however easily create a database for your custom data in the same SQL server instance that is used by the Sitecore databases. There are tutorials on how to do that on the internet: https://youtube.com/watch?v=uzezbA5g3FI or https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-single-database-get-started?tabs=azure-portal. This last one also shows how to query your newly created database. It's all rather straight forward, but you do need to find the right buttons in the Azure portal and in the beginning that can be somewhat overwhelming - but with those tutorials you should be able to do it.

Optionally you might also consider using elastic pools for your databases (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-elastic-pool).