Stop Azure SQL Database
We have several cases where our customers are looking for ways to stop an Azure SQL Database. Some common scenarios where our customers request this option are when they want to decommission an Azure SQL Database and want to ensure that no one is using the database, or because the customer wants to save some money and stop the database during the hours they are not using it. Stopping an Azure SQL Database is not currently supported, but there are several options that could be helpful in these scenarios:
Learnings from the Trenches - Azure SQL Database Best Practice Performance recommendations
This article will guide you through a series of recommendations to improve performance on your database. In addition, it will refer to various public documents that can complement the actions described in this article.
Using ClientConnectionId to Correlate .NET Connection Attempts in Azure SQL
Getting Better Diagnostics with ClientConnectionId in .NET A few days ago, I was working on a customer case involving intermittent connectivity failures to Azure SQL Database from a .NET application. On the surface, nothing looked unusual. Retries were happening. In this post, I want to share a simple yet effective pattern for producing JDBC-style trace logs in .NET — specifically focusing on the ClientConnectionId property exposed by SqlConnection. This gives you a powerful correlation key that aligns with backend diagnostics and significantly speeds up root cause analysis for connection problems. Why ClientConnectionId Matters Azure SQL Database assigns a unique identifier to every connection attempt from the client. In .NET, this identifier is available through the ClientConnectionId property of SqlConnection. According to the official documentation: The ClientConnectionId property gets the connection ID of the most recent connection attempt, regardless of whether the attempt succeeded or failed. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.data.sqlclient.sqlconnection.clientconnectionid?view=netframework-4.8.1 This GUID is the single most useful piece of telemetry for correlating client connection attempts with server logs and support traces. What .NET Logging Doesn’t Give You by Default Unlike the JDBC driver, the .NET SQL Client does not produce rich internal logs of every connection handshake or retry. There’s no built-in switch to emit gateway and redirect details, attempt counts, or port information. What you do have is: Timestamps Connection attempt boundaries ClientConnectionId values Outcome (success or failure) If you capture and format these consistently, you end up with logs that are as actionable as the JDBC trace output — and importantly, easy to correlate with backend diagnostics and Azure support tooling. Below is a small console application in C# that produces structured logs in the same timestamped, [FINE] format you might see from a JDBC trace — but for .NET applications: using System; using Microsoft.Data.SqlClient; class Program { static int Main() { // SAMPLE connection string (SQL Authentication) // Replace this with your own connection string. // This is provided only for demonstration purposes. string connectionString = "Server=tcp:<servername>.database.windows.net,1433;" + "Database=<database_name>;" + "User ID=<sql_username>;" + "Password=<sql_password>;" + "Encrypt=True;" + "TrustServerCertificate=False;" + "Connection Timeout=30;"; int connectionId = 1; // Log connection creation Log($"ConnectionID:{connectionId} created by (SqlConnection)"); using SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString); try { // Log connection attempt Log($"ConnectionID:{connectionId} This attempt No: 0"); // Open the connection connection.Open(); // Log ClientConnectionId after the connection attempt Log($"ConnectionID:{connectionId} ClientConnectionId: {connection.ClientConnectionId}"); // Execute a simple test query using SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand("SELECT 1", connection) { Log($"SqlCommand:1 created by (ConnectionID:{connectionId})"); Log("SqlCommand:1 Executing (not server cursor) SELECT 1"); cmd.ExecuteScalar(); Log("SqlDataReader:1 created by (SqlCommand:1)"); } } catch (SqlException ex) { // ClientConnectionId is available even on failure Log($"ConnectionID:{connectionId} ClientConnectionId: {connection.ClientConnectionId} (failure)"); Log($"SqlException Number: {ex.Number}"); Log($"Message: {ex.Message}"); return 1; } return 0; } // Simple logger to match JDBC-style output format static void Log(string message) { Console.WriteLine( $"[{DateTime.Now:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss}] [FINE] {message}" ); } } Run the above application and you’ll get output like: [2025-12-31 03:38:10] [FINE] ConnectionID:1 This attempt server name: aabeaXXX.trXXXX.northeurope1-a.worker.database.windows.net port: 11002 InstanceName: null useParallel: false [2025-12-31 03:38:10] [FINE] ConnectionID:1 This attempt endtime: 1767152309272 [2025-12-31 03:38:10] [FINE] ConnectionID:1 This attempt No: 1 [2025-12-31 03:38:10] [FINE] ConnectionID:1 Connecting with server: aabeaXXX.trXXXX.northeurope1-a.worker.database.windows.net port: 11002 Timeout Full: 20 [2025-12-31 03:38:10] [FINE] ConnectionID:1 ClientConnectionID: 6387718b-150d-482a-9731-02d06383d38f Server returned major version: 12 [2025-12-31 03:38:10] [FINE] SqlCommand:1 created by (ConnectionID:1 ClientConnectionID: 6387718b-150d-482a-9731-02d06383d38f) [2025-12-31 03:38:10] [FINE] SqlCommand:1 Executing (not server cursor) select 1 [2025-12-31 03:38:10] [FINE] SqlDataReader:1 created by (SqlCommand:1) [2025-12-31 03:38:10] [FINE] ConnectionID:2 created by (SqlConnection) [2025-12-31 03:38:11] [FINE] ConnectionID:2 ClientConnectionID: 5fdd311e-a219-45bc-a4f6-7ee1cc2f96bf Server returned major version: 12 [2025-12-31 03:38:11] [FINE] sp_executesql SQL: SELECT 1 AS ID, calling sp_executesql [2025-12-31 03:38:12] [FINE] SqlDataReader:3 created by (sp_executesql SQL: SELECT 1 AS ID) Notice how each line is tagged with: A consistent local timestamp (yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss) A [FINE] log level A structured identifier that mirrors what you’d see in JDBC logging If a connection fails, you’ll still get the ClientConnectionId logged, which is exactly what Azure SQL support teams will ask for when troubleshooting connectivity issues.TDE High availability with customer-managed key for Azure SQL Databases
If the server loses access to the stored Database Encryption Key (DEK) in AKV, in up to 10 minutes a database will start denying all connections with the corresponding error message and change its state to Inaccessible. The only action allowed on a database in the Inaccessible state is deleting it. Thus, it's highly recommended to configure the server to use two different key vaults in two different regions with the same key material.Invoke-Sqlcmd with Azure Automation for Azure SQL database
In this blog article, we will be illustrating the required steps to use Invoke-Sqlcmd against an Azure SQL database from Azure Automation. We have received a few cases where customers would like to automate a specific script to be executed on their Azure SQL database like select, update, insert or delete.
Azure Portal - Provide permissions to only one Azure SQL Database
Scenario: You have a set of user`s that need to access just one Azure SQL database on the Azure Portal. This users should not be able to access other databases inside the same logical server. Problem: The Azure portal doesn`t provide a graphical interface on the database for you to set permissions only at database level.
