Today, we’re thrilled to announce a suite of new features for Azure Database for MySQL that focus on performance enhancements, enterprise capabilities, and cutting-edge AI functionality designed to revolutionize your database management experience and efficiency. Read on to see how these innovations can elevate your workflows!

Microsoft Copilot in Azure: Unlock the benefits of Azure Database for MySQL with your AI companion (Public Preview)

We’re excited to announce Microsoft Copilot in Azure extends capabilities to Azure Database for MySQL. Microsoft Copilot in Azure is an AI-powered tool that leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) and the Azure control plane to help you get answers to your general questions and receive high quality recommendations to real-time problems. With this new integration with Azure Database for MySQL, you can converse with Microsoft Copilot in Azure to discover new features, determine when to enable new features to supplement your own scenarios, learn from summarized tutorials to enable features or build applications, and obtain tips and best practice recommendations to avoid issues.

Learn more: Documentation | Announcement blog with demo video coming soon!

Build RAG applications with Azure OpenAI and MySQL with Azure AI Search

We’re excited to announce that you can now create Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) applications using Azure OpenAI and Azure Database for MySQL with Azure AI Search.

You can combine the smart, human-like responses of Azure OpenAI with MySQL’s powerful database management and Azure AI Search’s advanced search capabilities, making it easier to build apps that deliver relevant info quickly and efficiently. If you’re running applications (content management systems (CMS), e-commerce applications, or gaming sites) with data hosted in Azure Database for MySQL, enhance your user experience by building generative AI search and chat applications using LLMs available in Azure OpenAI and vector storage and indexing provided by Azure AI Search. Unleash the power of your data hosted on MySQL with the simple and seamless AI integrations on Azure!

Learn more: Demo video and sample architecture coming soon! | RAG in Azure AI Search documentation

Advancements in Azure Database for MySQL – Business Critical service tier (General Availability)

Achieve a 2x increase in throughput using Accelerated Logs (General Availability): We’re excited to announce the General Availability of Accelerated Logs, a feature that significantly boosts performance for write heavy workloads, offering up to a 2x improvement in throughput, out of the box, with no additional cost or application changes required. By reducing latency and enhancing data access speeds, the Accelerated Logs feature ensures that your mission-critical applications run more efficiently and smoothly on the Business Critical service tier. Try out this new feature to experience the difference in your workload performance!
Expand storage up to 32TB (General Availability) for your workloads using the Business Critical service tier. With storage auto-grow up to 32TB and auto-scale IOPs up to 80K, you can now run your large, growing mission-critical workloads worry-free on Azure!

Learn more: Documentation | Announcement blog with demo video coming soon!

Enhance data redundancy, availability, and auditing capabilities with on-demand backup and export (Public Preview)

With Public Preview of the on-demand backup and export feature, you can now easily export a physical backup of your MySQL flexible server to an Azure storage account (Azure blob storage) with just a few clicks on the Azure portal or with a single CLI command whenever you want. After exporting backups to blob storage, you can use them for multiple purposes, including:

Data recovery, redundancy, and availability. In addition to the automated backups managed by the service, you can export backups on-demand and use them for data recovery. In case of data corruption, accidental deletion, or hardware failure, simply restore the server to its previous state using this copy of your data.
Auditing. You can use exported physical backup files to restore on-premises MySQL servers to address the auditing, compliance, and archival requirements of an organization.
Compliance. Regulated industries must be able to export any data hosted by a cloud provider.
Avoid vendor lock in. Thake advantage of this solution to export data from MySQL flexible server or avoid vendor lock-in.

Learn more: Documentation | Announcement blog with demo video coming soon!

Simplify security management with Microsoft Defender for Cloud support (General Availability)

Last month, we announced the general availability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud support for Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server. The Defender for Cloud Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) feature simplifies security management of your MySQL flexible server by enabling effortless threat prevention, detection, and mitigation through increased visibility into and control over harmful events.

With the Defender for Cloud ATP feature, there’s no need to be a security expert to safeguard your MySQL flexible server against today’s growing threat landscape. ATP uses integrated security monitoring to detect anomalous database access and query patterns, as well as suspicious database activities, and provides targeted security recommendations and alerts.

Learn more: Demo video | Announcement blog

Conclusion

With the release of these capabilities, Azure Database for MySQL continues to be an industry leader for hosting your mission-critical applications on the cloud, offering top-tier performance for your workloads, enterprise capabilities and scale, enhanced monitoring, and robust backup and restore capabilities. The service seamlessly integrates with cutting-edge AI technologies through OpenAI, Azure Copilot, and Azure AI Search to deliver advanced functionalities and insights. Security is paramount, and with Microsoft Defender, your applications are protected by Microsoft’s expertise in cybersecurity, ensuring peace of mind against increasingly sophisticated threats. Azure Database for MySQL combines performance, innovation, and security to support your most demanding applications, while remaining on the open-source community MySQL version to protect against lock-ins.

To learn more about what’s new with Flexible Server, see What’s new in Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server. Stay tuned for more updates and announcements by following us on social media: YouTube | LinkedIn | X.

If you have any suggestions for or queries about our service, please let us know by emailing us at AskAzureDBforMySQL@service.microsoft.com. Thank you!

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