Scale single database resources in Azure SQL Database

Applies to: Azure SQL Database

This article describes how to scale the compute and storage resources available for Azure SQL Database in the provisioned compute tier. Alternatively, the serverless compute tier provides compute autoscaling and bills per second for compute used.

After initially picking the number of vCores or DTUs, you can scale a single database up or down dynamically based on actual experience using:

• Transact-SQL
• Azure portal
• PowerShell
• Azure CLI
• REST API

Impact

Changing the service tier or compute size of mainly involves the service performing the following steps:

1. Create a new compute instance for the database.

   A new compute instance is created with the requested service tier and compute size. For some combinations of service tier and compute size changes, a replica of the database must be created in the new compute instance, which involves copying data and can strongly influence the overall latency. Regardless, the database remains online during this step, and connections continue to be directed to the database in the original compute instance.

2. Switch routing of connections to a new compute instance.

   Existing connections to the database in the original compute instance are dropped. Any new connections are established to the database in the new compute instance. For some combinations of service tier and compute size changes, database files are detached and reattached during the switch. Regardless, the switch can result in a brief service interruption when the database is unavailable generally for less than 30 seconds and often for only a few seconds. If there are long-running transactions running when connections are dropped, the duration of this step can take longer in order to recover aborted transactions. Accelerated Database Recovery in Azure SQL can reduce the impact from aborting long running transactions.

Latency

The estimated latency to change the service tier, scale the compute size of a single database or elastic pool, move a database in/out of an elastic pool, or move a database between elastic pools is parameterized as follows:

SELECT s.file_id,
       s.type_desc,
       s.name,
       FILEPROPERTYEX(s.name, 'AccountType') AS AccountType
FROM sys.database_files AS s
WHERE s.type_desc IN ('ROWS', 'LOG');

Monitor or cancel scaling changes

A service tier change or compute rescaling operation can be monitored and canceled.

Login-AzAccount -Environment AzureChinaCloud
$SubscriptionID = "<YourSubscriptionIdHere>"
Select-AzSubscription -SubscriptionName $SubscriptionID

Get-AzSqlDatabaseActivity -ResourceGroupName "ResourceGroup01" -ServerName "Server01" -DatabaseName "Database01"

Stop-AzSqlDatabaseActivity -ResourceGroupName "ResourceGroup01" -ServerName "Server01" -DatabaseName "Database01" -OperationId af97005d-9243-4f8a-844e-402d1cc855f5

$resourceGroupName = "<resource group name>"
$serverName = "<server name>"
$databaseName = "<sql database name>"
az sql db op list --resource-group $resourceGroupName --server $serverName --database $databaseName --query "[?state=='InProgress'].name" --out tsv

$resourceGroupName = "<resource group name>"
$serverName = "<server name>"
$databaseName = "<sql database name>"
$operationName = (az sql db op list --resource-group $resourceGroupName --server $serverName --database $databaseName --query "[?state=='InProgress'].name" --out tsv)
if (-not [string]::IsNullOrEmpty($operationName)) {
    (az sql db op cancel --resource-group $resourceGroupName --server $serverName --database $databaseName --name $operationName)
        "Operation " + $operationName + " has been canceled"
}
else {
    "No service tier change or compute rescaling operation found"
}

Permissions

To scale databases via Transact-SQL: ALTER DATABASE is used. To scale a database a login must be either the server admin login (created when the Azure SQL Database logical server was provisioned), the Microsoft Entra admin of the server, a member of the dbmanager database role in master, a member of the db_owner database role in the current database, or dbo of the database. For more information, see ALTER DATABASE.

To scale databases via the Azure portal, PowerShell, Azure CLI, or REST API: Azure RBAC permissions are needed, specifically the Contributor, SQL DB Contributor role, or SQL Server Contributor Azure RBAC roles. For more information, see Azure RBAC built-in roles.

Additional considerations

• If you're upgrading to a higher service tier or compute size, the database max size doesn't increase unless you explicitly specify a larger size (maxsize).
• To downgrade a database, the database used space must be smaller than the maximum allowed size of the target service tier and compute size.
• When downgrading from Premium to the Standard tier, an extra storage cost applies if both (1) the max size of the database is supported in the target compute size, and (2) the max size exceeds the included storage amount of the target compute size. For example, if a P1 database with a max size of 500 GB is downsized to S3, then an extra storage cost applies since S3 supports a max size of 1 TB and its included storage amount is only 250 GB. So, the extra storage amount is 500 GB - 250 GB = 250 GB. For pricing of extra storage, see Azure SQL Database pricing. If the actual amount of space used is less than the included storage amount, then this extra cost can be avoided by reducing the database max size to the included amount.
• When upgrading a database with geo-replication enabled, upgrade its secondary databases to the desired service tier and compute size before upgrading the primary database (general guidance for best performance). When upgrading to a different edition, it's a requirement that the secondary database is upgraded first.
• When downgrading a database with geo-replication enabled, downgrade its primary databases to the desired service tier and compute size before downgrading the secondary database (general guidance for best performance). When downgrading to a different edition, it's a requirement that the primary database is downgraded first.
• The restore service offerings are different for the various service tiers. If you're downgrading to the Basic tier, there's a lower backup retention period. See Automated backups in Azure SQL Database.
• The new properties for the database aren't applied until the changes are complete.
• When data copying is required to scale a database (see Latency) when changing the service tier, high resource utilization concurrent to the scaling operation can cause longer scaling times. With Accelerated Database Recovery (ADR), rollback of long running transactions is not a significant source of delay, but high concurrent resource usage might leave less compute, storage, and network bandwidth resources for scaling, particularly for smaller compute sizes.

Billing

You're billed for each hour a database exists using the highest service tier + compute size that applied during that hour, regardless of usage or whether the database was active for less than an hour. For example, if you create a single database and delete it five minutes later your bill reflects a charge for one database hour.

Change storage size

vCore-based purchasing model

• Storage can be provisioned up to the data storage max size limit using 1-GB increments. The minimum configurable data storage is 1 GB. For data storage max size limits in each service objective, see resource limit documentation pages for Resource limits for single databases using the vCore purchasing model and Resource limits for single databases using the DTU purchasing model.

• Data storage for a single database can be provisioned by increasing or decreasing its max size using the Azure portal, Transact-SQL, PowerShell, Azure CLI, or REST API. If the max size value is specified in bytes, it must be a multiple of 1 GB (1073741824 bytes).

• The amount of data that can be stored in the data files of a database is limited by the configured data storage max size. In addition to that storage, Azure SQL Database automatically adds 30% more storage to be used for the transaction log. The price of storage for a single database or an elastic pool is the sum of data storage and transaction log storage amounts multiplied by the storage unit price of the service tier. For example, if data storage is set to 10 GB, the additional transaction log storage is 10 GB * 30% = 3 GB, and the total amount of billable storage is 10 GB + 3 GB = 13 GB.

  Note

  The maximum size of the transaction log file is managed automatically, and in some cases can be greater than 30% of the data storage maximum size. This does not increase the price of storage for the database.

• Azure SQL Database automatically allocates 32 GB per vCore for the tempdb database. tempdb is located on the local SSD storage in all service tiers. The cost of tempdb is included in the price of a single database or an elastic pool.

• For details on storage price, see Azure SQL Database pricing.

DTU-based purchasing model

• The DTU price for a single database includes a certain amount of storage at no additional cost. Extra storage beyond the included amount can be provisioned for an additional cost up to the max size limit in increments of 250 GB up to 1 TB, and then in increments of 256 GB beyond 1 TB. For included storage amounts and max size limits, see Single database: Storage sizes and compute sizes.
• Extra storage for a single database can be provisioned by increasing its max size using the Azure portal, Transact-SQL, PowerShell, the Azure CLI, or the REST API.
• The price of extra storage for a single database is the extra storage amount multiplied by the extra storage unit price of the service tier. For details on the price of extra storage, see Azure SQL Database pricing.

Geo-replicated database

To change the database size of a replicated secondary database, change the size of the primary database. This change will then be replicated and implemented on the secondary database as well.

Related content

• Resource limits for single databases using the vCore purchasing model
• Resource limits for single databases using the DTU purchasing model