Azure SQL Dev Corner
Voices from the Azure SQL PM Team, focusing on development and developers
Latest posts
PostgreSQL to SQL Field Notes: Date & Time
Moving from PostgreSQL to SQL Server? Learn the key differences between timestamp, timestamptz, datetime2, and datetimeoffset, including precision, time zones, offsets, and storage.
Coding agents are picking Azure SQL Database
I went looking for Azure SQL Database in a recent coding agent benchmark, honestly unsure whether Microsoft SQL would show up. Armature ran a study where real coding agent CLIs (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor) were dropped into six synthetic-but-realistic repositories and asked to pick a database, then actually build with it. 356 runs were completed across three personas: vibe coder, junior developer, senior engineer. Every session is published, so you can replay the prompts, the searches, the commands, and the code. Azure SQL Database came in second! Not second behind AWS. Second behind Neon, and ahead of Amazon...
SQL Decomposition in a Nutshell
Good software design principles apply inside the database too. See how decomposition, encapsulation, statelessness, and clear contracts can make complex T-SQL easier to read, test, reuse, and maintain.
Advocating for Uptime: The 6 Phases of Change
Schema changes are inevitable, but downtime doesn’t have to be. Learn a phased approach to safely evolve a production SQL schema while applications remain online.
Bacpac and Dacpac, the similarities and differences
When you need to move an entire database or move the objects in a database, bacpac and dacpac files often come up because of all of the tooling options to interact with them. Bacpac and dacpac files share some core similarities as well as some major differences in how they're used in SqlPackage and other SQL tools, but their flexibility can create a bit of confusion. In this post, we are going to discuss exactly what makes bacpac specifically important, as well as explore the options that a dacpac is capable of. A bacpac is primarily a portable copy of schema and data whose model is limited to the Azure SQL Data...
Try the new SqlClient and Retry connections natively
Microsoft.Data.SqlClient includes configurable retry logic for SqlConnection and SqlCommand, giving .NET applications built-in resilience for transient SQL Server failures without requiring Polly.