Azure SQL DB – An instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server.

The full message when connecting to your Azure SQL Database is:

Reason: An instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The public data endpoint on this server is not accessible. To connect to this server, use the Private Endpoint from inside your virtual network. (.Net SqlClient Data Provider)

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SQL Server Agent for Azure SQL DB?

I always wanted a way to schedule commands within Azure SQL Database. Personally, for me, the go to standard is the functionality of SQL Server Agent. Obviously, this is not possible out of the box but I have been using an on-premises SQL Server instance (within a specific vnet that is mapped to the logical Azure SQL server) with a linked server connection setup (with dedicated logins) to Azure SQL Database to run some code at a specific time to scale up (and down) my database dependent on peak hours.

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Azure Database for PostgreSQL

Having worked with Azure SQL Database and its many flavours for couple of years now I am confident in building deploying, whether manual or templates. Being in Azure you can take the same mind set to build non-Microsoft database tech such as PostgreSQL, MySQL etc.

Let’s work though one, it’s that easy.

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Azure SQL Database and Error Handling

For some reason I have friends / colleagues telling me that when scaling (up and down for this example) that no downtime occurs. Well, not only does Microsoft documentation say differently, I will show it. So let’s test it out. Before the practical test, this is the official stance. “There is a switch over period where connectivity is lost to the database for a short amount of time, which can be mitigated using retry logic”.

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Azure Advisor – for Azure Data Platform

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could access one main dashboard / report that pulls in information from many tools such as security centre, SQL advisor and cost management tools? Well you can, thus giving you a focal point to implement best practices, called Azure Advisor. This is not specifically for Azure SQL Database, you can leverage this for most resources within Azure.  Later in this blog post you see that I will use it as a focal point for my database infrastructure in Azure.

In the Azure portal under services look for “advisor”

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