16 Azure SQL Database Critical Concepts You Must Know Before Deployment

1. You cannot restart Azure SQL database.
2. You cannot see the database files.
3. You cannot shrink the database log files.
4. You cannot backup the Azure SQL database manually. The only option is to Export the Azure SQL Database as a bacpac file.
5. You cannot use Windows Authenticated users directly first need to synchronize AD with Microsoft Entra ID.
6. You can use Transactional Replication , Data Migration Service , bacpac file , BCP to migrate SQL Server on-prem database to Azure SQL Database.
7. You cannot create linked service directly between two Azure SQL Databases. You need to use either Azure Data Factory or Azure Synapse Pipelines.
8. You can use built-in performance tuning features in Azure SQL Databases which are not available in on-prem SQL Server.
   
   
   
   
   
9. You can easily identify and apply missing indexes in Azure SQL Databases which is not so direct in on-prem SQL Server.
10. Microsoft Copilot in Azure is now integrated with Azure SQL Database. Currently it's in preview but in few days you can simply say like "My database is slow" and it will give details like why it is slow and what are the fixes.
11. In few days you may need not write any queries for details... you can simply give prompts like " Are there any deadlocks in the database? " , " who are currently actively connected to the database? " and so on. These features are currently can be tested using copilot which is in preview.
12. You cannot use Azure Data Studio beyond Feb 2026. Visual Studio Code is the next stop.
13. Database Watcher is going to be one stop in-depth monitoring solution for Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance.
14. You need to use the feature Failover Groups if you want to manage the replication and failover of Azure SQL database(s) from one region to another Azure region.
15. You do not have control over Azure SQL Database maintenances but you can configure notifications so that you will get notified about the maintenance events of your Azure SQL Database.
16. As of now each new Azure subscription includes 10 serverless databases. Each database comes with a complimentary allocation of 100,000 vCore seconds of compute, 32 GB of data storage, and 32 GB of backup storage every month, for the lifetime of your subscription.

 

Thanks VV!!