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HomeIT ServicesTools, software and servicesMicrosoft SQL database service

Microsoft SQL database service

The Microsoft SQL database service provides central hosting of SQL services.

It's for registered users who need the extra processing resources of an enterprise database system for large and resource intensive database applications.

Key features

  • No specific storage limit (though for very high volume usage, limits may be necessary to protect the shared service).
  • Enhanced query processing.
  • Suitable for moderate to heavy use.

Access instructions

  • Contact IT Services with your suggested database name and a short summary of its purpose. 
  • We'll then get back to you to discuss your needs. 
  • Requests for a new Microsoft SQL database take five business days to complete.

Related tools

Available to staff, academic researchers and web account owners.

You can use this service on University-managed devices.

App-based

Compatible with Windows.

Funded by the University

There isn’t a cost to you for standard use.

Access instructions

  • Contact IT Services with your suggested database name and a short summary of its purpose. 
  • We'll then get back to you to discuss your needs. 
  • Requests for a new Microsoft SQL database take five business days to complete.

Related tools

Guides and help

Training and best practice

Contact for support

If you're experiencing technical issues and need advice, please contact IT Services.

Service commitments

Your responsibilities and policies

We ask that you:

  • Keep us informed about changes to your contact details.
  • Manage your use of Microsoft SQL databases allocated to you, eg sharing or securing them appropriately.
  • Contact us in good time if you foresee use of your database increasing significantly, either long-term or as spikes of heavy activity.
  • Let us know if you no longer need a database you have been allocated.

The following policies apply to all IT services provided by the University.

Service performance

Availability

  • This is a live service, available 24/7.

Support

  • This service is managed by IT Services.
  • We are responsible for monitoring, identifying and fixing faults.
  • Support is available during our opening hours.

Standards

  • Our service performance and standards have been produced in consultation with our customers. We regularly monitor the delivery, performance and availability of facilities and services.

Resilience

This service runs on our high-availability virtual machine platform. In the event of a major incident, it will automatically fail over between data centres. Multiple servers ensure the service continues, even as the failover progresses. Filestores are replicated between data centres and should also fail over automatically.

A backup is taken of all Microsoft SQL databases each day for disaster recovery purposes, enabling them to be restored to that point in time if the database were to become corrupted, or if a catastrophic event occurred to the file servers and/or data centres.

Feedback and complaints

We appreciate feedback as it helps us review and continually improve our service.

Page last reviewed: 9 September 2024