In a previous article I described how to configure an Azure SQL database failover group for high availability across multiple regions. But what if you want to limit network traffic to a database in this failover group to only your private networks? In this article I show how to make a SQL database failover group reachable via the Private Link service and make sure the database stays reachable after a failover.

With an Azure SQL Database, Microsoft is already providing high availability with an SLA of at least 99.99%. But if you want to prevent to be affected by a large regional event or want to meet regulatory demands to be able to execute failovers to another region, enabling a failover group is the solution for you. In this article I will show you how to create a SQL database failover group in two regions using the Azure CLI.

With Windows Azure we can use Windows Azure SQL Database service (formerly known as SQL Azure) when we need a Relational Database. Microsoft offers a 99.9% monthly SLA for this service. But Microsoft doesn't provide you with the service to restore your data to a moment back in time when you (accidentally) delete of corrupt data. To have a backup in time I wrote some code to allow a Worker Role to backup my Windows Azure SQL Database every hour. Most solutions you find online are relying on the REST Endpoints but the address of the endpoint is different depending on which datacenter your database is hosted. I found a different solution where you only need the connection string to your database using the DacServices.

With SharePoint 2010 the amount of databases on your SQL server has grown quite a bit. By default most of these databases have their recovery model set to 'FULL'. After some time you will discover you're running out of space.