What is Azure SQL Database?
06/17/2025
Applies to: Azure SQL Database
This article provides an overview of Azure SQL Database, a fully managed platform as a service
(PaaS) database engine that handles most of the database management functions such as
upgrading, patching, backups, and monitoring without user involvement.
７ Note
Try Azure SQL Database free of charge and get 100,000 vCore seconds of serverless
compute and 32 GB of storage every month.
Overview
Azure SQL Database is always running on the latest stable version of the SQL Server database
engine and patched OS with 99.99% availability . PaaS capabilities built into Azure SQL Database
enable you to focus on the domain-specific database administration and optimization activities
that are critical for your business. With Azure SQL Database, you can create a highly available and
high-performance data storage layer for the applications and solutions in Azure. SQL Database
can be the right choice for a variety of modern cloud applications because it enables you to
process both relational data and nonrelational structures, such as graphs, JSON, spatial, and XML.
Azure SQL Database is based on the latest stable version of the Microsoft SQL Server database
engine. You can use advanced query processing features, such as high-performance in-memory
technologies and intelligent query processing. In fact, the newest capabilities of SQL Server are
released first to Azure SQL Database, and then to SQL Server itself. You get the newest SQL Server
capabilities with no overhead for patching or upgrading, tested across millions of databases.
SQL Database enables you to easily define and scale performance within two different purchasing
models: a vCore-based purchasing model and a DTU-based purchasing model. SQL Database is a
fully managed service that has built-in high availability, backups, and other common maintenance
operations. Microsoft handles all patching and updating of the SQL and operating system code.
You don't have to manage the underlying infrastructure.
If you're new to Azure SQL Database, check out the Azure SQL Database Overview video from our
in-depth Azure SQL video series:
https://learn.microsoft.com/shows/Azure-SQL-for-Beginners/Azure-SQL-Database-
Overview-7-of-61/player
Purchasing models
SQL Database offers the following purchasing models:
The vCore-based purchasing model lets you choose the number of vCores, the amount of
memory, and the amount and speed of storage. The vCore-based purchasing model also
allows you to use Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server to get a discount on the allocation
of SQL Server licenses to the SQL Database Engine.
The DTU-based purchasing model offers a blend of compute, memory, and I/O resources in
three service tiers, to support light to heavy database workloads. Compute sizes within each
tier provide a different mix of these resources, to which you can add additional storage
resources.
Service tiers
The vCore-based purchasing model offers three service tiers:
The General Purpose service tier is designed for common workloads. It offers budget-
oriented balanced compute and storage options.
The Business Critical service tier is designed for OLTP applications with high transaction rates
and low latency I/O requirements. It offers the highest resilience to failures by using several
isolated replicas.
The Hyperscale service tier is designed for most business workloads. Hyperscale provides
great flexibility and high performance with independently scalable compute and storage
resources. It offers higher resilience to failures by allowing configuration of more than one
isolated database replica.
The DTU-based purchasing model offers three service tiers:
The Basic service tier is designed for less demanding workloads. It offers cost-effective
solutions for small applications with minimal performance requirements.
The Standard service tier is designed for common workloads. It offers budget-oriented
balanced compute and storage options.
The Premium service tier is designed for OLTP applications with high transaction rates and
low latency I/O requirements. It offers the highest resilience to failures by using several
isolated replicas.
Compute tiers
The vCore-based purchasing model provides two different compute tiers for Azure SQL Database
- the provisioned compute tier, and the serverless compute tier. The DTU-based purchasing
model provides just the provisioned compute tier.
Provisioned compute tier: provides a specific amount of compute resource that is
continuously provisioned independent of workload activity, and bills for the amount of
compute provisioned at a fixed price per hour.
Serverless compute tier: automatically scales compute resources based on workload activity
and bills for the amount of compute used, per second. The serverless compute tier is
generally available in the General Purpose service tier and in the Hyperscale service tier.
Deployment models
Azure SQL Database provides the following deployment options for a database:
Single database represents a fully managed, isolated database. You might use this option if
you have modern cloud applications and microservices that need a single reliable data
source. A single database is similar to a contained database in the SQL Server database
engine.
Elastic pool is a collection of single databases with a shared set of resources, such as CPU or
memory. Single databases can be moved into and out of an elastic pool.
） Important
To understand the feature differences between SQL Database, SQL Server, and Azure SQL
Managed Instance, as well as the differences among different Azure SQL Database options,
see SQL Database features.
SQL Database delivers predictable performance with multiple resource types, service tiers, and
compute sizes. It provides dynamic scaling with no downtime, built-in intelligent optimization,
global scalability and availability, and advanced security options. These capabilities allow you to
focus on rapid app development and accelerating your time-to-market, rather than on managing
virtual machines and infrastructure. SQL Database is currently in 38 datacenters around the world,
so you can run your database in a datacenter near you.
Scalable performance and pools
You can define the amount of resources assigned.
With single databases, each database is isolated from others and is portable. Each has its
own guaranteed amount of compute, memory, and storage resources. The amount of the
resources assigned to the database is dedicated to that database, and isn't shared with other
databases in Azure. You can dynamically scale single database resources up and down. The
single database option provides different compute, memory, and storage resources for
different needs. For example, you can get 1 to 128 vCores, or 32 GB to 4 TB. The Hyperscale
service tier enables you to scale up to 128 TB, with fast backup and restore capabilities.
With elastic pools, you can assign resources that are shared by all databases in the pool. You
can create a new database, or move the existing single databases into a resource pool to
maximize the use of resources and save money. This option also gives you the ability to
dynamically scale elastic pool resources up and down.
You can build your first app on a small, single database at a low cost per month in the General
Purpose service tier. You can then change its service tier manually or programmatically at any time
to the Business Critical or Hyperscale service tier, to meet the needs of your solution. You can
adjust performance without downtime to your app or to your customers. Dynamic scaling enables
your database to transparently respond to rapidly changing resource requirements. You pay for
only the resources that you need when you need them.
Dynamic scaling is different from autoscaling. Autoscaling is when a service scales automatically
based on criteria, whereas dynamic scaling allows for manual scaling without downtime. The
single database option supports manual dynamic scaling, but not autoscale. For a more automatic
experience, consider these alternatives:
Use the serverless tier, which does provide autoscaling.
Use scripts to schedule or automate scalability for a single database. For an example, see
Use PowerShell to monitor and scale a single database.
Use elastic pools, which allow databases to share resources in a pool based on individual
database needs. Elastic pools can also be scaled with custom scripts, allowing you to
schedule or automate scalability.
Watch this video in the Azure SQL Database essentials series for a brief overview of scaling your
database:
https://learn-video.azurefd.net/vod/player?id=e10562ba-2079-48c9-abc7-
b3163c079341&locale=en-us&embedUrl=%2Fazure%2Fazure-sql%2Fdatabase%2Fsql-
database-paas-overview
Elastic pools to maximize resource utilization
For many businesses and applications, being able to create single databases and dial performance
up or down on demand is enough, especially if usage patterns are relatively predictable.
Unpredictable usage patterns can make it hard to manage costs and your business model. Elastic
pools are designed to solve this problem. You allocate performance resources to a pool rather
than an individual database. You pay for the collective performance resources of the pool rather
than for single database performance.
With elastic pools, you don't need to focus on dialing database performance up and down as
demand for resources fluctuates. The pooled databases consume the performance resources of
the elastic pool as needed. Pooled databases consume but don't exceed the limits of the pool, so
your cost remains predictable even if individual database usage doesn't.
You can add and remove databases to the pool, scaling your app from a handful of databases to
thousands, all within a budget that you control. You can also control the minimum and maximum
resources available to databases in the pool, to ensure that no database in the pool uses all the
pool resources, and that every pooled database has a guaranteed minimum amount of resources.
To learn more about design patterns for software as a service (SaaS) applications that use elastic
pools, see Design patterns for multitenant SaaS applications with SQL Database.
Scripts can help with monitoring and scaling elastic pools. For an example, see Use PowerShell to
monitor and scale an elastic pool in Azure SQL Database.
Blend single databases with pooled databases
You can blend single databases with elastic pools, and change the service tiers of single databases
and elastic pools to adapt to your situation. You can also mix and match other Azure services with
SQL Database to meet your unique app design needs, drive cost and resource efficiencies, and
unlock new business opportunities.
Extensive monitoring and alerting capabilities
Azure SQL Database provides advanced monitoring and troubleshooting features that help you
get deeper insights into workload characteristics. These features and tools include:
The built-in monitoring capabilities provided by the latest version of the SQL Server
database engine. They enable you to find real-time performance insights.
PaaS monitoring capabilities provided by Azure that enable you to monitor and
troubleshoot a large number of database instances.
Database watcher (preview) enables in-depth, low-latency current and historical monitoring
and provides a single-pane-of-glass view of your Azure SQL estate.
Query Store, a built-in SQL Server monitoring feature, records the performance of your queries in
real time, and enables you to identify the potential performance issues and the top resource
consumers. Automatic tuning and recommendations provide advice regarding the queries with
the regressed performance and missing or duplicated indexes. Automatic tuning in SQL Database
enables you to either manually apply the scripts that can fix the issues, or let SQL Database apply
the fix. SQL Database can also test and verify that the fix provides some benefit, and retain or
revert the change depending on the outcome. In addition to Query Store and automatic tuning
capabilities, you can use standard DMVs and XEvents to monitor the workload performance.
You can efficiently monitor the status of thousands of databases by using the built-in
performance monitoring and alerting features of SQL Database. Using these tools, you can quickly
assess the impact of scaling up or down, based on your current or projected performance needs.
Additionally, SQL Database can emit metrics and resource logs for easier monitoring. You can
configure SQL Database to store resource usage, workers and sessions, and connectivity into one
of these Azure resources:
Azure Storage: For archiving vast amounts of telemetry for a small price.
Azure Event Hubs: For integrating SQL Database telemetry with your custom monitoring
solution or hot pipelines.
Azure Monitor logs: For a built-in monitoring solution with reporting, alerting, and
mitigating capabilities.
Availability capabilities
Azure SQL Database enables your business to continue operating during disruptions. In a
traditional SQL Server environment, you generally have at least two machines locally set up. These
machines have exact, synchronously maintained, copies of the data to protect against a failure of
a single machine or component. This environment provides high availability, but it doesn't protect
against a natural disaster destroying your datacenter.
Disaster recovery assumes that a catastrophic event is geographically localized enough to have
another machine or set of machines with a copy of your data far away. In SQL Server, you can use
Always On Availability Groups running in async mode to get this capability. People often don't
want to wait for replication to happen that far away before committing a transaction, so there's
potential for data loss when you do unplanned failovers.
Databases in the Premium and Business Critical service tiers already do something similar to the
synchronization of an availability group. Databases in lower service tiers provide redundancy
through storage by using a different but equivalent mechanism. Built-in logic helps protect
against a single machine failure. The active geo-replication feature protects your databases
against broad region-wide outages.
Azure Availability Zones tries to protect against the outage of a single datacenter building within
a single region. It helps you protect against the loss of power or network to a building. In SQL
Database, you place the different replicas in different availability zones (different buildings,
effectively).
In fact, the service level agreement (SLA) of Azure, powered by a global network of Microsoft-
managed datacenters, helps keep your app running 24/7. The Azure platform fully manages every
database, and it guarantees no data loss and a high percentage of data availability. Azure
automatically handles patching, backups, replication, failure detection, underlying potential
hardware, software or network failures, deploying bug fixes, failovers, database upgrades, and
other maintenance tasks. Standard availability is achieved by a separation of compute and storage
layers. Premium availability is achieved by integrating compute and storage on a single node for
performance, and then implementing technology similar to Always On Availability Groups. For a
full discussion of the high availability capabilities of Azure SQL Database, see SQL Database
availability.
In addition, SQL Database provides built-in business continuity and global scalability features.
These include:
Automatic backups:
SQL Database automatically performs full, differential, and transaction log backups of
databases to enable you to restore to any point in time. For single databases and pooled
databases, you can configure SQL Database to store full database backups to Azure Storage
for long-term backup retention. For managed instances, you can also perform copy-only
backups for long-term backup retention.
Point-in-time restores:
All SQL Database deployment options support recovery to any point in time within the
automatic backup retention period for any database.
Active geo-replication:
The single database and pooled databases options allow you to configure up to four
readable secondary databases in either the same or globally distributed Azure datacenters.
For example, if you have a SaaS application with a catalog database that has a high volume
of concurrent read-only transactions, use active geo-replication to enable global read scale
and remove bottlenecks on the primary that are due to read workloads.
Failover groups:
All SQL Database deployment options allow you to use failover groups to enable high
availability and load balancing at global scale. Failover groups allow for transparent geo-
replication and failover of large sets of databases, and elastic pools. Failover groups enable
the creation of globally distributed SaaS applications, with minimal administration overhead.
This leaves all the complex monitoring, routing, and failover orchestration to SQL Database.
Zone-redundant databases:
SQL Database allows you to provision Premium or Business Critical databases or elastic
pools across multiple availability zones. Because these databases and elastic pools have
multiple redundant replicas for high availability, placing these replicas into multiple
availability zones provides higher resilience. This includes the ability to recover automatically
from the datacenter scale failures, without data loss.
Built-in intelligence
With SQL Database, you get built-in intelligence that helps you dramatically reduce the costs of
running and managing databases, and that maximizes both performance and security of your
application. The SQL Database platform collects and processes a massive amount of telemetry
data while fully respecting customer privacy. Various algorithms continuously evaluate the
telemetry data so that the service can learn and adapt with your application.
Automatic performance monitoring and tuning
SQL Database provides detailed insight into the queries that you need to monitor. SQL Database
learns about your database patterns, and enables you to adapt your database schema to your
workload. SQL Database provides performance tuning recommendations, where you can review
tuning actions and apply them.
Managing a huge number of databases might be impossible to do efficiently even with all
available tools and reports that SQL Database and Azure provide. Instead of monitoring and
tuning your database manually, you might consider delegating some of the monitoring and
tuning actions to SQL Database by using automatic tuning. SQL Database automatically applies
recommendations, tests, and verifies each of its tuning actions to ensure the performance keeps
improving. This way, SQL Database automatically adapts to your workload in a controlled and safe
way. Automatic tuning means that the performance of your database is carefully monitored and
compared before and after every tuning action. If the performance doesn't improve, the tuning
action is reverted.
Many of our partners that run SaaS multitenant apps on top of SQL Database are relying on
automatic performance tuning to make sure their applications always have stable and predictable
performance. For them, this feature tremendously reduces the risk of having a performance
incident in the middle of the night. In addition, because part of their customer base also uses SQL
Server, they're using the same indexing recommendations provided by SQL Database to help their
SQL Server customers.
Two automatic tuning aspects are available in SQL Database:
Automatic index management: Identifies indexes that should be added in your database,
and indexes that should be removed.
Automatic plan correction: Identifies problematic plans and fixes SQL plan performance
problems.
Adaptive query processing
You can use adaptive query processing, including interleaved execution for multi-statement table-
valued functions, batch mode memory grant feedback, and batch mode adaptive joins. Each of
these adaptive query processing features applies similar "learn and adapt" techniques, helping
further address performance issues related to historically intractable query optimization problems.
Advanced security and compliance
SQL Database provides a range of built-in security and compliance features to help your
application meet various security and compliance requirements.
） Important
Microsoft has certified Azure SQL Database (all deployment options) against a number of
compliance standards. For more information, see the Microsoft Azure Trust Center , where
you can find the most current list of SQL Database compliance certifications.
Advanced threat protection
Microsoft Defender for SQL is a unified package for advanced SQL security capabilities. It includes
functionality for managing your database vulnerabilities, and detecting anomalous activities that
might indicate a threat to your database. It provides a single location for enabling and managing
these capabilities.
Vulnerability assessment:
This service can discover, track, and help you remediate potential database vulnerabilities. It
provides visibility into your security state, and includes actionable steps to resolve security
issues, and enhance your database fortifications.
Threat detection:
This feature detects anomalous activities that indicate unusual and potentially harmful
attempts to access or exploit your database. It continuously monitors your database for
suspicious activities, and provides immediate security alerts on potential vulnerabilities, SQL
injection attacks, and anomalous database access patterns. Threat detection alerts provide
details of the suspicious activity, and recommend action on how to investigate and mitigate
the threat.
Auditing for compliance and security
Auditing tracks database events and writes them to an audit log in your Azure storage account.
Auditing can help you maintain regulatory compliance, understand database activity, and gain
insight into discrepancies and anomalies that might indicate business concerns or suspected
security violations.
Data encryption
SQL Database helps secure your data by providing encryption. For data in motion, it uses
transport layer security. For data at rest, it uses transparent data encryption. For data in use, it
uses Always Encrypted.
Data discovery and classification
Data discovery and classification provides capabilities built into Azure SQL Database for
discovering, classifying, labeling, and protecting the sensitive data in your databases. It provides
visibility into your database classification state, and tracks the access to sensitive data within the
database and beyond its borders.
Microsoft Entra integration and multifactor authentication
SQL Database enables you to centrally manage identities of database user and other Microsoft
services with Microsoft Entra integration. This capability simplifies permission management and
enhances security. Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) supports multifactor
authentication to increase data and application security, while supporting a single sign-in process.
Easy-to-use tools
SQL Database makes building and maintaining applications easier and more productive. SQL
Database allows you to focus on what you do best: building great apps. You can manage and
develop in SQL Database by using tools and skills you already have.
ﾉ Expand table
Tool Description
The Azure portal A web-based application for managing all Azure services.
Azure Data Studio A cross-platform database tool that runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
SQL Server A free, downloadable client application for managing any SQL infrastructure, from
Management Studio SQL Server to SQL Database.
SQL Server Data A development tool for SQL databases, Integration Services packages, Analysis
Tools in Visual Studio Services data models, and Reporting Services reports.
Visual Studio Code A free, downloadable, open-source code editor for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It
supports extensions, including the mssql extension for querying Microsoft SQL
Server, Azure SQL Database, and Azure Synapse Analytics.
SQL Database supports building applications with Python, Java, Node.js, PHP, Ruby, and .NET on
macOS, Linux, and Windows. SQL Database supports the same connection libraries as SQL Server.
Create and manage Azure SQL resources with the
Azure portal
The Azure portal provides a single page where you can manage all of your Azure SQL resources
including your SQL Server on Azure virtual machines (VMs).
To access the Azure SQL page, from the Azure portal menu, select Azure SQL or search for and
select Azure SQL in any page.
７ Note
Azure SQL provides a quick and easy way to access all of your SQL resources in the Azure
portal, including single and pooled databases in Azure SQL Database as well as the logical
server hosting them, Azure SQL Managed Instances, and SQL Server on Azure VMs. Azure
SQL is not a service or resource, but rather a family of SQL-related services.
To manage existing resources, select the desired item in the list. To create new Azure SQL
resources, select + Create.
After selecting + Create, view additional information about the different options by selecting
Show details on any tile.
For details, see:
Create a single database
Create an elastic pool
Create a managed instance
Create a SQL virtual machine
SQL Database frequently asked questions
Can I control when patching downtime occurs?
The maintenance window feature allows you to configure predictable maintenance window
schedules for eligible databases in Azure SQL Database. Maintenance window advance
notifications are available for databases configured to use a nondefault maintenance window.
How do I plan for maintenance events?
Patching is generally not noticeable if you employ retry logic in your app. For more information,
see Planning for Azure maintenance events in Azure SQL Database.
Can I access my backups?
Azure SQL Database backups are managed automatically. No one has direct access to the
backups. The backups are deleted once the configured retention period expires. For more
information, see Automated backups in Azure SQL Database and Long-term retention.
Engage with the SQL Server engineering team
DBA Stack Exchange : Ask database administration questions.
Stack Overflow : Ask development questions.
Microsoft Q&A question page: Ask technical questions.
Feedback : Report bugs and request features.
Reddit : Discuss SQL Server.
Related content
See the pricing page for cost comparisons and calculators regarding single databases and
elastic pools.
See these quickstarts to get started:
Create a database in the Azure portal
Create a database with the Azure CLI
Create a database using PowerShell
For a set of Azure CLI and PowerShell samples, see:
Azure CLI samples for SQL Database
Azure PowerShell samples for SQL Database
For information about new capabilities as they're announced, see What's new in Azure SQL
Database?
See the Azure SQL Database blog , where SQL Server product team members blog about
SQL Database news and features.
