Azure SQL Hyperscale Unveiled - by Bob Ward (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

As organizations build increasingly data-driven and AI-powered applications, they need database platforms that can grow without sacrificing performance or resiliency. In this practical guide, Bob Ward, a Principal Architect on the Microsoft Azure Data team, takes readers inside Hyperscale's distributed architecture, showing how it uses the power of SQL Server to deliver the scale, performance, and resiliency required by modern cloud workloads.

You will learn how to deploy Hyperscale, build applications that use JSON, vectors, in-database RAG, AI agents, and GitHub Copilot, and leverage core capabilities such as serverless compute autoscaling, elastic pools, automatic storage growth, high availability and disaster recovery, named replicas, and zone redundancy. Practical design patterns demonstrate how teams can start small, scale as needed, and combine familiar SQL Server skills with new cloud-first, AI-ready techniques.

Whether you are modernizing existing applications or building new intelligent systems, this guide equips you to use Azure SQL Hyperscale as a flexible, reliable, AI-enabled cloud database platform for workloads at any scale.

What You Will Learn

• Deploy Azure SQL Hyperscale for workloads of any size
• Translate existing SQL Server skills to cloud-based development
• Understand the distributed architecture and internals of Hyperscale
• Build data-driven applications using JSON, vectors, RAG, and AI agents
• Develop Hyperscale solutions using GitHub Copilot and related tools
• Secure cloud data and implement high availability and disaster recovery strategies
• Optimize performance across Hyperscale workloads
• Apply practical design patterns for scalability, resiliency, and modernization

Who This Book Is For

Developers, IT professionals, and SQL Server practitioners who want to build data-driven, AI-powered applications using Azure SQL Hyperscale.

From the Back Cover

As organizations build increasingly data-driven and AI-powered applications, they need database platforms that can grow without sacrificing performance or resiliency. In this practical guide, Bob Ward, a Principal Architect on the Microsoft Azure Data team, takes readers inside Hyperscale's distributed architecture, showing how it uses the power of SQL Server to deliver the scale, performance, and resiliency required by modern cloud workloads.

You will learn how to deploy Hyperscale, build applications that use JSON, vectors, in-database RAG, AI agents, and GitHub Copilot, and leverage core capabilities such as serverless compute autoscaling, elastic pools, automatic storage growth, high availability and disaster recovery, named replicas, and zone redundancy. Practical design patterns demonstrate how teams can start small, scale as needed, and combine familiar SQL Server skills with new cloud-first, AI-ready techniques.

Whether you are modernizing existing applications or building new intelligent systems, this guide equips you to use Azure SQL Hyperscale as a flexible, reliable, AI-enabled cloud database platform for workloads at any scale.

What You Will Learn

• Deploy Azure SQL Hyperscale for workloads of any size
• Translate existing SQL Server skills to cloud-based development
• Understand the distributed architecture and internals of Hyperscale
• Build data-driven applications using JSON, vectors, RAG, and AI agents
• Develop Hyperscale solutions using GitHub Copilot and related tools
• Secure cloud data and implement high availability and disaster recovery strategies
• Optimize performance across Hyperscale workloads
• Apply practical design patterns for scalability, resiliency, and modernization

About the Author

Bob Ward is a Principal Architect on the Microsoft Azure Data team, where he works on the engineering of Microsoft SQL from ground to cloud to fabric. He has been with Microsoft for more than 32 years and has contributed to every version of SQL Server from OS/2 1.1 through SQL Server 2025, including Azure SQL and SQL Database in Fabric. A frequent speaker on SQL Server, Azure SQL, AI, and Microsoft Fabric, he presents at events such as SQLBits, Microsoft Build, Microsoft Ignite, the PASS Summit, the Fabric Community Conference, and VS Live. Bob is the author of Pro SQL Server on Linux, SQL Server 2019 Revealed, Azure SQL Revealed, SQL Server 2022 Revealed, Azure SQL Revealed 2nd Edition, and SQL Server 2025 Unveiled, all published by Apress. You can follow him at @bobwardms or at linkedin.com/in/bobwardms.