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Category: Cloud

Load Testing Azure SQL Database (Again)

Published 2026-10-22 by Kevin Feasel

Reitse Eskens is back in the fight:

When I started hammering Azure SQL again, I had a set of scripts to run and tried to figure out what was happening. For most databases, I could explain the results, but some didn’t make sense. I’ll get back to that later in this series.

A few years ago, I did a similar performance-testing series, where I created the data on the database itself using SqlStress to run a massive load of queries and see what happened. This gave a lot of interesting results, most of which are still valid, but I wanted to try something different.

After a look at some Standard SKUs, Reitse moves up to Business Critical:

My previous post on load testing Azure SQL covered the Standard Edition; today I’m moving to the Premium Edition, which is Business Critical in DTU shape.

Again, the calculation mixes CPU, Memory, and disk I/O. The main difference between Standard and Premium is cost. Premium is more expensive and aimed at mission-critical workloads. It has faster storage and built-in replication options. It also includes redundancy, with features designed to keep your solution online.

There are some interesting cutoff points in the tests that make a low-end P-SKU cheaper and just as good as a higher-end S-SKU.

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Interpreting the Azure Landing Zone as a DBA

Published 2026-10-22 by Kevin Feasel

Jordan Boich reviews an architecture:

VNet, subnet, NSG and UDR are four key acronyms that exist between me and my DR replica. The first time I started peering into the network world, trying to figure out the nuance how Azure networking impacts SQL Server was a confusing experience. Honestly, I didn’t know what the heck I was looking at. I found through this project, however, that success lies in the foundation. And, setting up that foundation makes all of the downstream processes much easier. This post is going to cover setting up that foundation in Azure. The empty network will harness all of our future objects.

Read on for an extended analogy that helps explain the key networking concepts in Azure.

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Connecting Azure Databricks to a Microsoft Foundry AI Gateway

Published 2026-10-20 by Kevin Feasel

Drew Furgiuele connects the dots:

While some people might look at the different capabilities and think this is an “either/or” scenario, the reality is that most Azure customers are going use (or even need to use) both: developers building apps and agents in Databricks, for example, may want to leverage a model or other agent deployed in Foundry. Meanwhile, developers in Foundry may need to call a Databricks managed MCP service.

These types of calls aren’t all that difficult; in fact, both platforms provide built-in connectors or UI solutions to make this happen: simply provide the service endpoint, pick your authentication method, and you’re pretty much done. However, the introduction of the respective gateways, especially on the Foundry side, can make this just a little more complicated. Let’s look at one example.

Click through for that issue and how Drew was able to work around it.

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Building an Isolated Hyper-V Network for Azure Communications

Published 2026-10-20 by Kevin Feasel

Jordan Boich continues a series on networking for the DBA:

Before I even touched anything related to Azure, I needed to make sure that nothing I did could impact my Wi-Fi at home. The whole reason why I love home lab environments so much is because it is contained end to end. If I break something in my lab, it’s comforting to know that nothing important will ever be in that blast radius. This post is all about hitting the prerequisites that don’t touch anything important like setting up an isolated lab network, save points for my existing VMs, license checks, and creating an Azure subscription that doesn’t touch anything else.

Read on to see what Jordan did.

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Testing Immutable SQL Server Backups

Published 2026-10-20 by Kevin Feasel

Warwick Rudd tries to make a change:

In Part 1 we built an immutable container. In Part 2 we gave the SQL Server 2025 VM a Managed Identity and Microsoft Entra authentication. This is where it comes together. We’ll keep the traffic between SQL Server and storage on the private network, lock down who can reach the storage account, give the VM permission to write, and then take a backup and try to delete it.

Read on for those steps.

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Creating an Azure DevOps Deployment

Published 2026-10-20 by Kevin Feasel

Reitse Eskens deploys some Microsoft Fabric assets:

Let me generalise first: you can essentially choose two options to promote your hand-crafted and superior code compared to anyone else from development to production. The first way is to use the Fabric deployment pipelines. These are essentially copy actions that move the development state to production. Option two is to use either GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps pipelines.

The main issue I’ve seen with the Fabric deployment pipelines is that the deployed code still references the development environment. This results in your notebook running in production and happily writing the results in the development lakehouse. To mitigate this, you can add actions to the Fabric pipeline, check out the newly announced Fabric deployment plans, or remember to update all references.

Click through for a high-level depiction of the process.

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Using Managed Identities to Write Backups to Azure

Published 2026-10-16 by Kevin Feasel

Warwick Rudd continues a series:

In Part 1 we built somewhere safe to put the backups: a storage account with a delete lock and a container with a time-based retention policy.

The next problem is getting SQL Server to write to it without giving it a password. That’s what the Managed Identity is for. The VM gets an identity in Microsoft Entra ID, SQL Server uses it to authenticate to storage, and there’s no SAS token or storage key anywhere to steal, rotate or forget about.

There are a few moving parts to get there, and most of the time spent on this is in Entra ID and networking rather than SQL Server.

Read on to see what needs to happen.

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The Benefits of Database Cost Optimization

Published 2026-10-05 by Kevin Feasel

Chad Timms lays out some benefits:

Flexera’s 2026 State of the Cloud Report found that estimated waste in cloud infrastructure and platform spend rose to 29% this year. That is the first increase in five years. Managing cloud costs remains the top challenge for 85% of respondents. Your database estate sits inside that cloud bill through licensing, capacity, and the people who keep it running. It is rarely examined line by line. Database cost optimization seldom fails for lack of effort. It fails because the spend gets treated as a purchasing problem when it is really an operating one.

Renewals get negotiated. Cloud service tiers get compared. Meanwhile, the decisions that actually set the number are made on the ground, often by whoever is on call that week. Below are seven questions a finance or IT leader can put to their own team, or to a provider, along with what a strong answer and a weak answer sound like.

The target of this post is more for managers versus line employees, but it’s good to think about how you would answer the questions in the post.

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Immutable Backups on SQL Server 2025 in Azure

Published 2026-10-02 by Kevin Feasel

Warwick Rudd takes us through some steps:

Most people know they need backups. Fewer have thought about what happens when somebody else gets to them first. Ransomware doesn’t start by encrypting your databases. It starts by finding your backups, because once those are gone you have nothing to recover to and every reason to pay. So a backup that anyone with the right credentials can delete is only a partial answer. It protects you from a failed server. It doesn’t protect you from someone who has made their way into your environment.

What you want is a backup that can’t be changed or deleted by anybody until the retention period you set has passed. Not an attacker, not a compromised admin account, and not you on a bad day. SQL Server 2025 makes this a lot more practical. Backup to URL now supports Managed Identity, so you can write backups to immutable Azure Blob Storage without handing out a SAS token or a storage key. There’s no secret sitting in a credential waiting to be found.

Click through for steps to set up the storage account.

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