Some of you have seen a blog on Azure AD only authentication (hereafter “AAD-only auth”) that was accidently published. With this blog we would like to correct the previous message and announce that this feature will be in a public preview in June and will support all Azure SQL SKUs such as Azure SQL Database, Azure Synapse Analytics and Managed Instance (MI).
Following the SQL on-premises feature that allows the disabling of SQL authentication and enables only Windows authentication, we developed a similar feature for Azure SQL that allows only Azure AD authentication and disables SQL authentication in the Azure SQL environment.
When “AAD-only auth” is active (enabled), it disables SQL authentication, including SQL server admin as well as SQL logins and users, and allows only Azure AD authentication for the Azure SQL server and MI. SQL authentication is disabled at the server level (including all databases) and prevents any authentication (connection to the Azure SQL server and MI) based on any SQL credentials.
Although SQL authentication is disabled, the creation of new SQL logins and users is not blocked. Neither the pre-existing nor newly created SQL accounts will not be allowed to `connect to the server. In addition, enabling the AAD-only auth does not remove existing SQL login and user accounts, but it disallows these accounts to connect to Azure SQL server and any database created for this server.
