Unleashing the Power of Azure Arc: Enabling SQL Server Across Hybrid Environments

In this tutorial, I want to explore how to Arc enable your SQL servers and bring the power of Azure to your non-Azure servers. 

Benefits of Arc-enabling your SQL Servers

By installing Azure Arc on your SQL servers you can control and govern your entire data estate from Azure.  

Once you have the Arc agent installed on your SQL server you can enable Microsoft Purview and start to use it to:

• Gain visibility into data across your organisation
• Safeguard and manage sensitive data across it’s lifecycle
• Manage critical data risks and regulatory requirements

You can view your Arc-enabled servers within the Azure portal, meaning you can view all your on-prem, Azure and Edge data servers in one place.  You will also have access to tag your Arc-enabled servers just like you do with your Azure resources.

You also have access to a best practice assessment, that will evaluate your SQL server from several angles, security, compliance, performance, scalability and much more.

From an asset management and licensing point of view, you can view that from within the Azure portal as well, review your SQL server licence position and update it if required.  As well as purchasing and enabling Extended Security Updates (ESU) for any SQL server versions that have gone End of Life (EOL), ensuring you stay compliant. 

These are just the first steps of benefiting from Arc-enabling your servers, the next steps are to start exploring how to use things like Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Active Directory, Azure Update Management and much more on your on-prem servers. 

Step-by-Step Guide to Enabling SQL Server with Azure Arc

Let’s walk through the steps you need to go through to Arc-enable your servers. 

Register Azure resource providers

An Azure resource provider is a collection of REST operations that provide functionality for an Azure service. 

To use Azure Arc-enabled servers, the following Azure resource providers must be registered in your subscription:

• Microsoft.HybridCompute
• Microsoft.GuestConfiguration
• Microsoft.HybridConnectivity
• Microsoft.AzureArcData 

To enable them you can use Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI or the Azure portal.  We’re going to use Azure CLI this time.

Head over to https://shell.portal.com 

Paste the following code into your shell window: 

az provider register --namespace 'Microsoft.HybridCompute'
az provider register --namespace 'Microsoft.GuestConfiguration'
az provider register --namespace 'Microsoft.HybridConnectivity'
az provider register --namespace 'Microsoft.AzureArcData'

Networking prerequisites 

One of the first things you must consider is how your Azure Arc agent will communicate from your environment to Azure.  You can have the Arc agent communicate directly from each server to Azure, you can direct traffic through a Proxy server or you can use private link. To fully understand the network topology options for Azure Arc check out the official documentation.

Regardless of what method of communication you choose, you need to ensure that the Arc agent can communicate with a list of URLs.  You can find an updated list of URLs here.

Some URLs are there to ensure authentication between the Arc agent and Azure, others are there to help enable certain services. 

Azure Resource Group

When you install Azure Arc onto a server a resource within Azure will be created.  This will be like any other resource inside Azure meaning you need to store it within an Azure Resource group and specify an Azure region to store that group and resource in.  

You should create an Azure Resource Group to store all your Azure Arc resources. 

Install the Azure Arc agent

From the Azure Portal, search for Azure Arc to launch the wizard.

When the Azure Arc management blade loads, select Machines from the left-hand side. 

Now select Add/Create

You can either register servers individually, through a bulk process or via Update Management. In this tutorial, we are going to select the multiple servers option. 

There are some prerequisites you need to meet, ensure you have met them before going any further. 

In the next step, you are asked to select some information.  You are asked to select the subscription, resource group, operating system (OS), connectivity method and region.  

When using the multiple server onboarding option you are asked to create a service principal. This is used for authentication when registering the Azure Arc agent on each of your servers. 

If you don’t already have an appropriate Service principal you can use, you can create one from the Azure Arc wizard by selecting Create New organisation's.  This will launch a side configuration window. 

When creating the Service principal you will be asked some information: 

• Service principal name - Give your Service principal an appropriate name matching your organisation's naming conventions.
• Scope assignment level - Select where your Service principal will have permissions, either at the all-up subscription level or specifically within a resource group.
• Description - This is an optional field.
• Expiry - You can configure how long the Service principal account is active within your environment, ensure you set the expiry length long enough for you to onboard all your servers.
• Roles - These are the permissions that the Service principal will have, ensure you select at least Azure Connected Machine Onboarding and Azure Connected Machine Resource Administrator.

Once you’ve filled in all the information select Create.

Now you are back to the main configuration window select Next.

The next step is to populate any values for the suggested tags or you can create your own. 

The last screen will show you the command to run your Windows or Linux server. Copy it and close the wizard.

Now you have the Azure Arc installation script, head over to your server and copy the installation script.  

Within a few minutes, the agent install will complete and you will have a server listed within the Azure portal. 

The Azure Arc agent after some time will automatically detect any SQL instances installed on the server,  and your SQL servers will be listed and visible under SQL Server instances within your Azure Arc management blade.

Azure Arc enabled SQL server best practices assessment

Now that your SQL servers are Azure Arc-enabled, you can take advantage of the best practice assessment feature.   When enabled this feature will provide recommendations on things like:

• SQL Server and database configurations
• Index management
• Deprecated features
• Enabled or missing trace flags
• Statistics
• & more

For full instructions on how to enable and run the best practices assessment tool on your servers, check out the official Microsoft implementation instructions. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, Arc-enabling your SQL servers through Azure Arc provides a centralised and comprehensive solution for managing your entire data estate. The benefits include enhanced visibility, safeguarding sensitive data, and addressing critical data risks and regulatory requirements. 

Leveraging the Azure portal allows you to seamlessly view and tag your Arc-enabled servers, conduct best practice assessments, and manage licensing for optimal compliance. As you embark on this journey, consider exploring additional features such as Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Active Directory, and Azure Update Management.