SQL Server 2022 on Windows Server 2022

SQL Server 2022 on Windows Server 2022 — Hardened, Monthly-Certified Azure Marketplace VM

This offer delivers a production-ready Microsoft SQL Server 2022 database server running on Windows Server 2022 Datacenter (Gen2), built and certified for the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. Each image is freshly built from Microsoft's official SQL Server 2022 base SKU, fully patched with that month's Windows Server cumulative update and SQL Server 2022 hotfixes, hardened to Microsoft's Azure Marketplace certification standards, and published with a passing certification report on every release.

Who this is for: IT directors, database administrators, platform-engineering and DevOps teams, managed service providers (MSPs), independent software vendors (ISVs), and enterprise organizations running production SQL Server workloads on Azure. This offer is especially valuable for organizations with formal change-management processes, audit requirements, or regulatory compliance obligations that require documented, certified image provenance for every deployed database server.

Target industries: Financial services and banking (Ledger tables, Trusted Launch for audit mandates), healthcare and life sciences (HIPAA baseline, monthly patch currency), retail and e-commerce (high-throughput OLTP, PCI DSS hardening), manufacturing and supply chain (ERP/MES database backends), public sector and government (FedRAMP patch documentation, Trusted Launch for security frameworks), and ISV product platforms (certified base image for enterprise customer security reviews).

Value proposition: Deploying SQL Server on Azure from scratch requires significant ongoing effort: monthly Windows Server and SQL Server patching, removing EOL components that trigger cert failures, offboarding Defender for Endpoint, verifying Trusted Launch Secure Boot compatibility, and running Azure VM certification tests. This offer eliminates all of that:

• Monthly patched & certified — current Windows Server CU and SQL Server 2022 hotfix rollup each month; passes all 200.x cert policies before any version is published
• Trusted Launch ready — vTPM and Secure Boot captured at build time; deploy on Standard_D/E/M v5 and other Trusted Launch-capable VM sizes without additional setup
• Security-hardened baseline — Defender for Endpoint fully offboarded; EOL runtime components (.NET 6, etc.) removed; no build-time tooling in the captured image
• Audit trail per release — certification reports retained for each published image version, available for compliance audits and change-management documentation
• No image-factory overhead — subscribe via Marketplace pay-as-you-go; no Packer pipelines, no cert troubleshooting; deploy in minutes

SQL Server 2022 features included: Ledger (tamper-evident audit tables with blockchain verification), Always Encrypted with secure enclaves, parameter-sensitive plan optimization, contained availability groups for Azure Arc, Query Store hints, T-SQL enhancements (GREATEST/LEAST, DATETRUNC, IS [NOT] DISTINCT FROM), Azure Synapse Link, Microsoft Purview integration, and Azure Active Directory authentication.

Plans: Standard Edition (up to 24 cores and 128 GB buffer pool; ideal for mid-tier OLTP, departmental databases, line-of-business applications) and Enterprise Edition (unlimited core and memory scaling; required for In-Memory OLTP, advanced OLAP, Always On AG with readable secondaries, and maximum SQL Server feature coverage). SQL Server license included via Marketplace pay-as-you-go billing under Microsoft commercial marketplace terms.

Recommended deployment: Standard_E4ds_v5 or larger (OLTP); Standard_E8ds_v5 or larger (data warehouse). Dedicated Premium SSD or Ultra Disk LUNs for data and log volumes. Windows Server Failover Clustering with Always On Availability Groups for production HA. Azure Backup for SQL Server for application-consistent backup and point-in-time restore.

Support: support@dcassociatesgroup.com · www.dcassociatesgroup.com/support — business hours, 24-hour initial response SLA.