Microsoft Azure

Azure SQL DB, Backup and Recovery

I got an interesting request for consulting, and I’m going to paraphrase it: We were using Azure SQL DB with automatic index tuning enabled for months. Things were going great, but… we just deployed a new version of our code. Our deployment tool made the database schema match our source control, which… dropped the indexes…

Why Australian Azure SQL DBs Went Down for 8+ Hours

Last Updated September 4, 2023

On August 30, Azure’s Australia East data center had a big problem, affecting customers like Bank of Queensland and Jetstar. Here’s the timeline: 30 August 2023 @ 08:41 – Voltage sag occurred on utility power line 30 August 2023 @ 08:43 – Five chillers failed to restart 30 August 2023 @ 10:30 – Storage and SQL…

Finishing Up Your Free Azure Networking Training

Last Updated July 12, 2023

To celebrate this month’s launch of our new class, Fundamentals of Azure Networking for the Data Professional, we’re making one video a day completely free. Here’s what’s on tap this week: July 24: Demo: Working With a VPN July 25: Hub and Spoke vs Mesh Design Patterns July 26: Microsoft-Managed Virtual Networks July 27: Demo:…

Free Azure Networking Training This Week

Last Updated July 12, 2023

To celebrate this month’s launch of our new class, Fundamentals of Azure Networking for the Data Professional, we’re making one video a day completely free. Here’s what’s on tap this week: July 17: Demo: Using Virtual Networks for Data Services July 18: Demo: Private Networks Without Public Access July 19: Demo: Multiple Private Networks July…

Free Azure Networking Training This Month!

Last Updated July 12, 2023

Raise your hand if you’ve ever blamed the network. You’re responsible for the health, security, and uptime of your company’s data services in Azure. You’ve provisioned a few services, but every now and then, you run into problems making your services reachable and reliable from different users and app servers. You want to understand: Your…

Adding Managed Instances to SQL Server Distributed Availability Groups

Last Updated June 20, 2021

Always On Availability Groups, Managed Instances

SQL Server Always On Availability Groups help you build a more highly available database server by spanning your database across two or more SQL Server instances. When the primary goes down, the secondary can take over. You can also scale out reads to the secondary servers. Distributed Availability Groups take this a step further and…

Azure SQL DB Frequently Asked Questions

Last Updated April 14, 2021

I’ve seen your search history. Let’s get you some answers. Is Azure SQL DB PaaS, IaaS, or SaaS? Azure SQL DB is platform-as-a-service (PaaS). Microsoft manages most common database tasks for you, and they act as your DBA. This also means that like a DBA, Microsoft will tell you “no” if you try to implement…

Free Webcast: Planning a SQL Server to Azure Migration in 2021

Last Updated February 25, 2021

You manage database servers for your company, and they’re thinking about migrating everything to Microsoft Azure. You’ve searched the web for information and advice, but everything you’re finding is outdated. You just want a list of things to review on your servers, an overview of what won’t work in the cloud, and how to pick…

[Video] Top 3 Pitfalls of Managing Your Azure SQL DB Costs

Last Updated June 23, 2020

Azure SQL DB, Videos

You manage servers, not invoices. Your company has started to move their databases into Azure, and they’re asking questions that you’re just not ready to answer. How big does your server need to be when you’re moving an existing database up to the cloud? How are servers measured? How do you measure to know if…

New Free Azure and SQL Server 2019 Training from Microsoft

Last Updated August 5, 2020

Folks often email me and ask, “Brent, why don’t you do training classes on Azure?” The answer is simple: the products change faster than I can recoup the cost of building the training material. By the time the class gets enough revenue to pay off the downtime for building an Azure (or AWS or Google)…

Research Paper Week: Constant Time Recovery in Azure SQL DB

Last Updated August 11, 2019

Azure SQL DB, Backup and Recovery

Let’s finish up Research Paper Week with something we’re all going to need to read over the next year or two. I know, it says Azure SQL DB, but you boxed-product folks will be interested in this one too: Constant Time Recovery in Azure SQL DB by Panagiotis Antonopoulos, Peter Byrne, Wayne Chen, Cristian Diaconu, Raghavendra…

Research Paper Week: Automatic Indexing in Azure SQL DB

Last Updated August 11, 2019

Architecture, Azure SQL DB, Indexing

Before I give you the link to the next research paper in this week’s series, I wanna give you a few questions to think about: If you had to build something to automatically add indexes to SQL Server databases, where would you start? What data would you use to make your decisions? How would you…

Now is the time to sharpen your cloud database skills. Here’s how to start.

Last Updated June 10, 2019

Many of us DBAs have been able to put off dealing with the cloud. That time is quickly coming to an end. But when was resistance to change ever a great career strategy in a tech field? Besides, two or three or four years from now, you might not have much choice in the matter.…

Developers: Azure SQL DB Serverless can save you money.

Last Updated July 8, 2019

If you’ve got a database that doesn’t need to be on all the time, Azure SQL DB Serverless is in public preview now. It makes a lot of sense for those development databases you have to keep around, but don’t really want to pay for. If your database doesn’t get any queries for 6 hours,…

Building a SQL Server app? Start with Azure SQL DB.

Last Updated April 2, 2019

No no, April Fool’s was yesterday. Hear me out. Azure SQL DB’s feature limitations are a good thing. It doesn’t support everything that SQL Server supports, like CLR, cross-database transactions, database mail, linked servers, and OPENQUERY, but…frankly that feature-limitation page reads like a list of my favorite things to tell developers to avoid. You shouldn’t…

In Azure SQL DB, what does “The connection is broken and recovery is not possible” mean?

Last Updated March 1, 2019

All it really means is, “Click Execute again, and you will be fine.” If I had a dollar for every time I saw this error message in SQL Server Management Studio: The connection is broken and recovery is not possible. The error says: The connection is broken and recovery is not possible. The connection is…

There’s a bottleneck in Azure SQL DB storage throughput.

Last Updated February 26, 2019

As you pay more for Business Critical Azure SQL DB servers, they’re supposed to get more storage throughput. The documentation on this is kinda hard to read, but boiling it down, for every core you add to a Gen5 server, you’re supposed to get 2,500 IOPs. That should scale linearly: insert speed should go up evenly with…

What does Azure SQL DB Automatic Index Tuning actually do, and when?

Last Updated February 18, 2019

Azure SQL DB, Indexing

Azure SQL DB’s Automatic Tuning will create and drop indexes based on your workloads. It’s easy to enable – just go into your database in the Azure portal, Automatic Tuning, and then turn “on” for create and drop index: ENGAGE Let’s track what it does, and when. I set up Kendra Little‘s DDL trigger to log index changes, which…

How fast can a $21,468/mo Azure SQL DB load data? (Updated)

Last Updated March 19, 2019