You’re offline. This is a read only version of the page.
Hi,
I'm moving an ACCESS Desktop App to PowerApps. The ACCESS DB had 7-8 tables, a few tables had 3,000+ records.
I'm thinking I should use Azure SQL DB. Is there something else I should be using or think about?
Thanks,
Tim
Thank you very much.
I'll definitely give a better thought about CDS.
Best wishes.
For volume, CDS can definitely support that assuming your customizations don't downgrade the performance. Just to give an idea, I've implemented cases where we had >300K volume a month on a single entity. For the storage, vanilla CDS takes around 1GB so you can discard the 1st GB and so you're consuming around 13MB now. To keep the storage at the most optimal level, here are things to keep in mind:
Wow, @EricRegnier ... thank you for that.
Yes, for sure CDS offers a lot... specially for someone like me, without solid skills on database and programming (I worked with these more than 20 year ago, with Clipper/Dbase, then Delphi/[forgot the database name, but it was already relational and accessed through SQL]). I am now trying to deploy some business ideas using PowerApps as low-code platform, and CDS makes it a lot easier. (I already run a prototype of our solution having Google spreadsheet as database and Zapier as flow automation.)
However, I am a bit scared about the volume of data a prospect client showed to me (~10k rows every month in some tables), regarding the amount of processing capacity the database should support and how much it would cost to maintain. Can I really believe that CDS can handle such volume?? Even while being so easy to use and out-of-the box?? (really prejudicial thought, I know, based on my ignorance on this matter)
Regarding the cost: I have not really started building the database, having included only a few tables without real data, and it has used 1.13 Gb. Then, I would have to pay ~$35 a month for 1 Gb of additional storage (after the initial 10Gb). It would kill my business. In Azure SQL Database, I would pay ~$14 for the first 250 Gb of data (Standard 10 DTUs configuration).
Really tough decision.
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts.
Best wishes.
Marcelo.
I might be a little biased towards CDS but I always look beyond licensing, because as we know licensing always keeps evolving and the price of an app is more than that. We need to consider things like maintenance, effort and speed of development, opportunity cost, etc.
Although CDS does have a database it is much more than a database. It comes with a rich set of features that are usually common to any type of system/application especially in the enterprise space. If we were to compare to traditional software design, with a database, you'll need to develop a data access layer and all (yes there are some frameworks and tools to help with that), however with CDS all that is taken care of out-of-the-box and the developers just need to focus on the business and presentation layer. We can refer to CDS as a platform and even SDaaS (Software Dev as a Service). Here are just a few examples of these capabilities that you would have to custom build yourself or use custom frameworks with SQL.
Hi @Anonymous,
The answer you gave to that question was indeed really helpful. Since this thread happened in 2018 and a lot has evolved in the Power Platform world since then, would it be possible for you to grant us with an update of your thoughts?
We are planning to use power apps to solve some issues within the services we provide. Our dataset may be a bit big, like ~20 tables and at least two of them with ~10k rows added every month. We know little about database warehousing, but we believe Azure SQL Database would be much more indicated than CDS (although it would be much easier to use the latter). Not only due to performance issues, but also due to the cost of the infrastructure.
Thank you in advance. Best wishes.
Marcelo.
is this still true about delegation?
Start with the standard 5DTU database. It's about $5/mo.
Don't create a 2nd databse on that instance, though or it will default to a 50DTU database.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/sql-database/single/
Did you end up going with Azure SQL for the nappy database?
I'm also looking to setup a basic database from scratch, for a small business of 20 staff, somewhat similar to what you've got. 4 tables etc. So by the sounds of it seems like Azure SQL might be the way to go? Pricing seems really confusing, so I have no idea what the cost is going to be on it though...
Hi @Macro101
Yes on basic PowerApps plan for Enterprise you can connect to SQL Server. No need for Plan 1 or Plan2.
The $7/month for Azure database is just for the one database instance with basic plan (not the server).
My organization uses a lot of Azure Services so price per individual items becomes cheaper.
If you need to setup a whole Azure Services for your organization to get Database and Server it will be more expensive, not sure how much exactly, but I do not think it would go as high as $700/month for one server and database (all you need for PowerApps).
Wait, wait, wait...
You just blew my mind here @Anonymous. This is just earth shattering to me!
What do you mean that the basic PowerApps plan that comes with Enterprise license comes with a free SQL Server connector?
And here I was thinking that the free PowerApp could only connect with Office365 data!
This is amazing! And so much better for my clients! It is even cheaper than I thought!
If you had stopped there, you had already made my weekend!
But no, you had to go further. You mentioned you were only spending $6.68/month on Azure SQL?
How is that possible?
Then I researched a bit based on your figures and found it! And I thought I had to pay a minimum of $700.00/month!
I cannot thank you enough for this post.
In my book your status has just been elevated to "Legendary"
#1
mmbr1606
22
Super User 2025 Season 1
#2
stampcoin
17
#3
ankit_singhal
11
Super User 2025 Season 1
Share
Report
All responses (
Answers (