We are looking to possibly migrate our E10 Database from a on-prem install to Azure hosted Database. Has anyone done this in the past? The application server(s) would still be local for the time being, but the DB would be elsewhere.
Assuming this is doable, what caveats is this going to cause us to run into? I assume there is going to be some additional latency, however as we are mainly ‘Work from Home’, it may actually boost speeds for some of us.
I am just wondering what others may have run into using a scenario like this, and what we can expect if we go this route. Or, if there are better alternative paths to take? (Always On Availability between on-prem and the cloud?)
I imagine quite a bit of latency. I’ve had an Epicor employee say that it’s “quite chatty” between the app server and the database. We were talking about having the database in Azure but an app server in the US and one in Germany. He felt that even with the faster networking between the two regions, it would be quite slow - and probably $$$ with the inter-region networking charges in Azure.
Azure SQL is always the most recent too and I’m not sure that Epicor would support that. It could work but you might be on your own.
Make sure to use reserved instances to get the price lower.
Also, remind the boss-person that to really compare the two costs, you’ll need to have a second on prem server 100 miles away, offsite storage, better physical security, power backup, and environmental controls (AC/Fire) than you probably have now.
Right now our ‘on-prem’ is actually off-prem at a datacenter somewhere in Ohio (I think). It may be in PA…regardless, it is not in one of our own facilities. That, in itself, is a start.
Now I’ve heard that Azure SQL has limited/no SSIS or SQL Agent support as well…that could be problematic, heh.
I am thinking of setting up a fully virtualized environment in Azure, installing the full app server/db server on a few VMs up there, connecting it to my existing WAN and calling it a day…it would make life a lot easier at that point.
Just a friendly thought. I worked at a place that did exactly this. When they got popped, it went into Azure and got ERP too. Consider using only https to your app server from the company and use other remote access tools for server maintenance.
No worries. You can still download client updates via https as well just like the Epicor Cloud Team does it currently.
That was the easiest “Wait…why not go this route” conversation I have ever had.
“Boss, we have over 8 facilities in the US. We are already replicating most everything across multiple sites, along with DFS Replication on our file shares, redundancy on just about everything we can think of excluding our ERP system. Why not set up a proper HA Cluster with VMWare, replicate the ERP Servers to multiple facilities, create a proper off-site backup for the ‘worst case scenario’, and set up S2D with an SQL Server Failover Cluster”
Seriously, we just purchased 3 new servers for each location…lets put them to use.
I would do this sooner rather than later. You gain many advantages by having Azure be your infrastructure provider. The cost to host a VM in Azure running SQL would range from around $300 per month up to $1,000 depending on your hardware needs. The app servers would run around $200-$500.
You would make your Azure environment part of your WAN so you are not exposing anything to public. You can do this very easily and inexpensively with an appliance for your SD-WAN provider or without. Once in Azure your DR, business continuity, and backups are so much better.
@josecgomez - The more I sit here and think about my options, the more I am leaning towards migrating it all to Azure. You are running a VM with SQL Server installed on it in your Azure Environment, right? You are not simply using Azure SQL?
@Gopher - Are those costs you mentioned based upon experience (IE: that is what you are paying) or speculative (IE: that is what you are expecting to pay when you migrate)? If those are your current costs, can I ask how you have the servers provisioned (specs)? I ask because I am just now starting to price this out and have absolutely no idea what to expect in regards to pricing.
Now that is what I am talking about. That is so much better than trying to manage that infrastructure locally between all of our facilities. I am going to be putting together something similar as a proposal to my penny-pinchers…errr…people that control the money, and am hoping that they do not have too much of a sticker shock. I don’t even know what to expect for a ballpark price on something like this. It’ll be fun for everyone!
You can get cheaper rates on Azure using Azure Reservations as well, if you commit to long-term usage. Additionally, if you have at least 1 VS Professional or Enterprise license, you can get access to dev/test pricing for your organization, which allows half-price hosting for your testing instances.
We are multi-site, though all within 2.5 miles, and fully moved to Azure. The only negative experience was that any inefficient process bogged down quickly, due to an additional 12ms (14ms new avg, 2ms old avg onsite) buffer from Azure’s San Antonio DC.
edit: to clarify, user-defined processes. user images that weren’t known to be large at the time immediately spiked network to near capacity when MES was used at the beginning and end of our main shift. I additionally had to optimize some dashboards and BAQs.
Yes, this is my second org where we migrated our datacenter/on prem servers via Azure Migrate to Azure. At both orgs, MS SQL running on Windows Server VM vs Azure SQL. If you have existing SQL volume licensing with Subscription Advantage, you will get a nice monthly discount.
Yes, the prices I mentioned before are based on experience. VMs with SQL server are usually the most expensive.
We have the setup above as well as another similar setup for development using the development tier. I don’t get to see the bill (thankfully) but I know we spend quite a bit on this.
Our Azure infrastructure, admittedly less complicated than Jose’s company, costs around or less than $3K/mo.
That’s everything including dev/test. The test environment spends a lot less time online to save cost. Production runs 24/7.
We maintain a DC, an app server (non-Epicor), Epicor App Server, and SQL. Most recently, we introduced a terminal server pool to maintain MES, in further effort to move dependency away from our main site. The Epicor and SQL server are beefy, the rest are appropriately sized. All production VM and disks are committed in Azure Reservations. We use Azure via site VPN to each location.
Dev/test runs separately and is a mirror infrastructure. Min cost is like $200/mo to maintain networking infra with VMs offline.
Also, hi Jason! Just realized who you were, haven’t interacted since I was a consultant working with y’all.
I have tried all Azure SQL products in our subscription.
Azure SQL does not work at all for ERP. Forget about this.
Azure SQL Managed Instance (an instance as service) almost works.
The only thing that works is “SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines” which is just plain SQL Server on a plain VM, sold and installed as a package.
Azure SQL Managed Instance could work if Epicor wants it to.
I could migrate an existing on-prem Epicor setup to Azure SQL Managed Instance, including EDD, SSRS and Enterprise Search. Everything worked.
The only thing that did not work was database management from the EAC.
So no database model generation, no database upgrades and no new databases.
It appeared to me that the EAC tools are confused by the SQL version that Managed Instance is exposing. The version number is I believe equal to that of SQL Server 2008, yet the compatibility level is equal to that of SQL Server 2019 (2022 did not exist yet at the time I tried).
This should be easy to fix. I created an Epicor Idea to fix this, so it is up to you to upvote it.
