An Azure SQL single database is a resource managed by Microsoft through the Azure Portal and is accessible from SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).

The main benefit from Azure SQL is the extremely facilitated maintenance of the database compared to a regular SQL Server machine. Everything can be done either through the Azure portal or SSMS, which means no actual Windows machine to deal with. It also means that most actions (duplicating database, backups, increasing performance, etc.) can be done with the click of a button, with virtually 0 downtimes.