Azure SQL Database “Step By Step” Tutorials

I would like to share a link to my Azure SQL Database Stairway series hosted over at SQLServerCentral.

As stated on the website a stairway guide is a series focused on a single topic and is arranged into no more than a dozen easily-navigable tutorials that we call ‘steps’. Each step is the length of a typical magazine tutorial, and emphasizes practical, hands-on learning, with just enough background theory to help you understand the topic.

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Azure SQL Database – Firewall Rules

If you decide to use IP addresses to control what services have access to your Azure SQL Database, then understanding firewall rules are important. Within this important area you have the ability to create firewall rules that are scoped to the database or server level as shown below.

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Azure SQL Database – Fixing My Scaling Failure

This is kind of a follow up from my last blog post about a scale down request issue. (https://blobeater.blog/2018/11/07/azure-sql-database-aborting-scale-request/) I was confused, so confused that I ended up logging a support request with Microsoft. The issue was I wanted to scale down a database from S1 to Basic however it would take hours for a 1GB database. Obviously something was up, but what?

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Azure SQL Database – Aborting Scale Request

Scaling up or down an Azure SQL Database is a very common task. Whilst common it is also very easy to do via the Azure portal or even PowerShell. When you scale a database please be aware that  it creates a replica of the original database at the new performance level and then switches connections over to the replica but what do you do if you want to cancel the scale request?

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Azure SQL Database – Who Changed My Auto Tuning Settings?

One of the features Microsoft wants us to use for Azure SQL Database  is Automatic Tuning. Automatic Tuning is a feature where you can think of it as entering the world of self-running and self-tuning databases.

It is said to be safe, reliable and proven using complex algorithms and built-in intelligence where it can do the following (see this link for more details: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-automatic-tuning)

  1. CREATE INDEX – identifies indexes that may improve performance of your workload, creates indexes, and automatically verifies that performance of queries has improved.
  2. DROP INDEX – identifies redundant and duplicate indexes daily, except for unique indexes, and indexes that were not used for a long time (>90 days). Please note that at this time the option is not compatible with applications using partition switching and index hints.
  3. FORCE LAST GOOD PLAN – identifies SQL queries using execution plan that is slower than the previous good plan, and queries using the last known good plan instead of the regressed plan.

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