Let’s say you have completed a lift and shift VM hosting to the cloud.  Great—you now use Iaas services.  While you don’t have to worry about the hardware, managing the software can be problematic.  The SQL Server IaaS Agent Extension can offer some PaaS-like services and make it easier to manage the database environment.  In this episode we chat with Ameena Lalani from Microsoft about this feature, why you might want to enable it, the prerequisites, and the downsides.  She also shares her daily guilty pleasure and Kevin lets it be known he doesn’t put toppings on his ice cream anymore.

Ameena Lalani is a SQL Server veteran and started her journey with SQL Server 2000. She works at Microsoft as a Customer Engineer. She has implemented numerous High Availability and Disaster Recovery solutions at various companies. She imparts high quality SQL Server on-prem and in Azure training to her customers. Ameena is a Microsoft Certified Trainer. She is a co-leader of the local Chicago SQL Server User Group. She loves to share her knowledge and volunteers to speak at various community technical events throughout the United States. In her free time, she plays with her cat Seby, read books and take walks in nature.

1. The IaaS Agent Extension gives you PaaS functionality in an IaaS environment.
2. You’ll need to understand your licensing arrangement to implement the feature.
3. If you choose a pre-installed configuration from the marketplace, the service is already in place.