If I set up a failover Group for an Azure SQL Database (not a Managed Instance or SQL Server on VM), is it possible to do a test failover, so there is a copy of the Azure SQL Database available for testing, whilst a copy of the production SQL instance is maintained?
Cheers
Alex
I don't think it's possible to do what you want. But if you could expand on what you are trying to accomplish perhaps we could be of more assistance.
When you setup a Failover Group for Azure SQL Database (or Managed Instances), you get a read/write end point and a read-only end point. As long as your application is configured to use the end points provided for this, they will always point at the correct node in the failover group for that purpose.
But you can always connect to the nodes specifically if you have a need to do that.
I have a query that will give me the FOG health for Managed Instances, but don't have anything for Azure SQL Database.
In my experience with failing these over, it happens quickly (<5 minutes) in my environment (6 fairly active databases, ~500GB). We've had issues in the past with failing over managed instances, but nothing that caused data loss, and no issues in the past 3 years and we do quarterly fail overs moving our environment between two Azure datacenters.
I do encourage you to get familiar with the process and see if the business will spend the extra to spin up a test setup that you can fail back and forth, then tear down when done.
