Forum Discussion
Switch Azure SQL Provisioned to Serverless and back to Provisioned
Hi
Can we switch Azure SQL from "Provisioned" to "Serverless" and back to "Provisioned" without any interruptions? Wanted to observe how serverless works for a week. Data should never be lost while switching the mode (NOT a transactional data). Its more of nightly refresh and nothing much happening during day time. Its a retail dataWH.
Currently im connecting to the below Azure SQL which is a provisioned instance. We are scaling up or down per our needs / work load and paying $X.
sql-xxxx-xxx-xxx-dev.database.windows.net
Nightly process runs at higher cores and then scales back to the lowest 2 core.
When someone queries tables, joins during day time, it takes 10-30 mins or so depending on the table size.
I'm wondering if i switch to serverless i would save money even if billed by seconds since nightly process runs 1hr and not much of querying every day during day time. i would like to test that.
3 Replies
Yes, for supported Azure SQL Database single databases, you can move between provisioned compute and serverless. The data is not lost by changing the compute tier.
However, plan for operational impact:
1. There can be a brief connection interruption during scaling/tier changes.
2. Applications should have retry logic.
3. Serverless can auto-pause if configured, so the first connection after pause can see resume latency.
4. Review min/max vCore settings so the database has enough floor capacity.
5. Test the change in a lower environment if the database is production critical.
So the switch is supported, but treat it like a compute/service tier change and schedule it with normal change-control expectations.
You can certainly switch back and forth but not without interruptions, you will experience connection failures during these (scaling) ops.
