SQL Server 2022 on Windows Server 2022

SQL Server 2022 on Windows Server 2022 — hardened, monthly-updated Azure Marketplace VM.

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

Who this is for: database administrators, platform-engineering and DevOps teams, MSPs, ISVs, and enterprises running production SQL Server on Azure — especially organizations whose change-management, audit, or compliance processes require documented, certified image provenance.

Target industries: financial services (Ledger tables, Trusted Launch for audit mandates), healthcare (HIPAA baseline, monthly patch currency), retail and e-commerce (high-volume transaction processing, PCI DSS hardening), manufacturing (ERP/MES database backends), public sector (documented patching, Trusted Launch), and ISV platforms needing a certified base image.

Why this image instead of building your own: running SQL Server on Azure yourself means monthly OS and database patching, removing end-of-life components that fail certification, verifying Secure Boot compatibility, and re-testing every release. This offer eliminates that work:

• Monthly patched & certified — current Windows Server CU and SQL Server 2022 hotfix rollup; passes all 200.x certification policies before publishing
• Trusted Launch ready — vTPM and Secure Boot captured at build time; deploy on Standard_D/E/M v5 sizes with no extra setup
• Security-hardened baseline — Defender for Endpoint offboarded, EOL runtimes removed, no build tooling left in the image
• Audit trail per release — certification reports retained for every published version
• Deploy in minutes — subscribe pay-as-you-go; no Packer pipelines or certification troubleshooting

SQL Server 2022 features included: Ledger (tamper-evident audit tables), Always Encrypted with secure enclaves, parameter-sensitive plan optimization, contained availability groups for Azure Arc, Query Store hints (built-in query performance history and tuning), Azure Synapse Link for near-real-time analytics, Microsoft Purview integration, and Microsoft Entra (Azure AD) authentication.

Azure integration: pair with Azure Backup for SQL Server for application-consistent backup and point-in-time restore, Azure Monitor for performance baselines, and Azure Arc for hybrid management across on-premises and cloud estates.

Plans & pricing: Standard Edition (up to 24 cores / 128 GB buffer pool — mid-tier OLTP, i.e. day-to-day transactional workloads, departmental and line-of-business databases) and Enterprise Edition (unlimited core and memory scaling — In-Memory OLTP, advanced analytics, Always On Availability Groups with readable secondaries). SQL Server license is included via Marketplace pay-as-you-go billing; per-plan rates are shown on the Plans + Pricing tab.

Recommended deployment: Standard_E4ds_v5 or larger for transactional workloads; Standard_E8ds_v5 or larger for data warehousing. Use dedicated Premium SSD or Ultra Disk volumes for data and log files. For high availability, run Always On Availability Groups on Windows Server Failover Clustering — automatic failover keeps the database online if a node fails.

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