Configure Azure SQL Database

This document provides an overview of the configuration options available for Azure SQL Database. Effectively configuring your Azure SQL Database is crucial for ensuring performance, security, and cost-efficiency.

Note: Azure SQL Database is a fully managed Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering that handles most of the database management functions. However, understanding and configuring key aspects allows you to tailor it to your specific workload requirements.

Key Configuration Areas

Configuring your Azure SQL Database involves several important areas, each impacting different aspects of your database's operation. Here are the primary categories:

1. Compute and Storage Configuration

This is fundamental to defining the performance and capacity of your database. You can choose between different service tiers and hardware generations:

Service Tiers: Options like Basic, Standard, Premium, Business Critical, General Purpose, and Hyperscale offer varying levels of performance (DTUs or vCores), storage, and availability.
Compute Size: Within a service tier, you can select a specific compute size (e.g., 8 vCores, 16 vCores) to match your workload demands.
Storage: You can configure the maximum storage size for your database.
Auto-Growth: Configure whether your database storage should automatically increase when it reaches its limit.

For more details, refer to the Performance Tiers documentation.

2. Networking Configuration

Securing access to your Azure SQL Database is paramount. Networking configurations control who and what can connect to your database:

Firewall Rules: Define IP address ranges that are allowed to access the SQL Database server. This includes server-level and database-level firewall rules.
Virtual Network Service Endpoints: Enable secure and direct connectivity from Azure Virtual Networks to your SQL Database.
Private Endpoint: Provide a dedicated private IP address for your SQL Database within your virtual network, offering enhanced security.
Connection Policy: Choose how clients connect, such as Redirect or Proxy.

Explore Networking Configuration and Firewall Rules for in-depth guidance.

3. Security and Compliance Configuration

Azure SQL Database offers robust security features to protect your data:

Authentication: Configure SQL authentication, Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) authentication, and Managed Identity.
Authorization: Manage database roles and permissions.
Transparent Data Encryption (TDE): Automatically encrypts your data at rest using a Microsoft-managed key or a customer-managed key.
Auditing: Log database events and access to audit logs for security analysis and compliance.
Advanced Threat Protection: Includes vulnerability assessment and threat detection capabilities to identify and mitigate potential threats.
Data Masking: Mask sensitive data to prevent unauthorized access.

Dive deeper into Auditing and Advanced Threat Protection.

4. High Availability and Disaster Recovery

Ensure your database remains available even in the event of an outage:

Geo-Replication: Create readable secondary databases in different Azure regions for disaster recovery.
Failover Groups: Manage replication and failover across multiple databases in different regions.
Automatic Backups: Azure SQL Database automatically performs full, differential, and transaction log backups.
Point-in-Time Restore: Restore your database to a specific point in time within the retention period.

5. Other Configuration Settings

Collation: Define the rules for sorting and comparing data, including character sets and sort order.
Time Zone: Set the server's time zone.
Resource Governor: Manage workloads and resource utilization (available in certain tiers).

Getting Started with Configuration

You can configure Azure SQL Database through several methods:

Azure Portal: A user-friendly web interface for managing all aspects of your Azure resources.
Azure CLI: A command-line interface for interacting with Azure resources.
Azure PowerShell: A scripting language for managing Azure resources.
Azure Resource Manager (ARM) Templates: Infrastructure as Code for deploying and configuring resources.
Transact-SQL (T-SQL): SQL commands executed directly against the database.

This overview serves as a starting point. Each configuration area has detailed documentation available through the links provided. Carefully planning and implementing these configurations will ensure your Azure SQL Database is secure, performant, and reliable.