Problem
When deploying a backing database with Invantive Data Replicator on Microsoft Azure SQL Server, you can encounter an itgendch534 error stating a service tier requirement of at least S1 level.
Solution
Invantive Data Replicator poses a number of requirements. These requirements typically include a minimum database version level to ensure proper functionality and make it harder to run software combinations which have not been certified.
Specifically on Azure, Microsoft has chosen to introduce a wide range of SQL Server offerings, ranging from very low-cost basic to high-performance enterprise-ready solutions.
Invantive Data Replicator does not support the basic and S0 service tier.
The basic tier offers at most 2 GB of storage with at most 5 DTU which equals in 2019 a limit of 12,5 IO per second. The S0 tier increases the storage limit to 250 GB with at most 25 IOs per second. S1 increases it to 50 IOs per second. One DDL statement raises tens of IO requests and even the bulk insert used by Invantive Data Replicator can easily lead to thousands of IOs for a replicated table and related indexes of a size typically found in SMEs.
Given the enterprise-nature of Data Replicator we have found that providing less then 50 IOs per second leads to unacceptable performance and avoidable support calls.
The minimum has therefore been set to S1 level. The current monthly costs of a S1 service tier database are approximately EUR 25.
OEM and white label
These restrictions also hold for OEM and white label versions. When running dozens of replicated sites, the Azure costs can be prohibitive. In such scenarios you can consider the use of an elastic pool, which offers sharing resources across many individual databases while various security additions enable you to build a secure environment.
Data Hub
Tables created using Data Hub directly from Invantive SQL (create or replace table name@sqlserver) have no minimum service tier requirements.