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So Azure has stop/start feature in preview

Following docs it's available only for:

Managed instances in the General Purpose service tier and Managed instances with the November 2022 feature wave enabled.

I have an azurerm_mssql_managed_instance with GP_Gen5 sku created by terraform. Since licensing of SQL Server is expensive, I want to switch it off at least for the night. However I can't see option to stop/start this instance in Azure Portal. What am I missing? Is there any other important parameter I should set up in order to enable that feature?

Normally after testing I would just run terraform destroy and if I need it next day recreate it. But it takes around 2,5-3h to provision it (by the MS docs can take even longer). So I can't simply destroy it to cut the costs.

marc_s
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kkarczewski
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  • Terraform Destroy does not seem like a good fit for this. If start/stop is a feature accessible via the api, then you may want to research spinup/spindown via Azure Function(s) configured to fire at the start and stop of business hours. – Ross Bush Jun 14 '23 at 13:51
  • You might have to go to the Subscription in the Portal and then "Preview Features" and enable it there? I've not used this preview feature specifically though – Martin Smith Jun 14 '23 at 19:30
  • if you already did enable the preview feature and not seeing it , check out [this limitations](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/managed-instance/november-2022-feature-wave-enroll?view=azuresql#known-issues) – Jayendran Jun 23 '23 at 12:00

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If were not able to find the November 2022 feature wave in the instance information box for Azure SQL MI start/stop feature.

As of July 5th 2023, there could be one of the 2 causes:

  1. If your subscription isn't enrolled in the feature wave yet, you
    might not see the feature wave option for your managed instance.
    Please wait while this option is made available.
  2. If you selected a subscription, region, or subnet type that's not eligible for the feature wave, you might not see the feature wave enabled for a new managed instance. Update these parameters and try again.

Most Azure public regions already support the November 2022 feature wave, with support for the remaining ones coming soon. Azure Government and sovereign clouds are currently unsupported.

Also The stop and start feature for managed instances is currently in preview and available only for Managed instances in the General Purpose service tier.

If you cannot see the option in the Azure Portal to stop the instance use PowerShell and the Stop-AzSqlInstanceOperation cmdlet.

Stop-AzSqlInstanceOperation -ResourceGroupName ps3753 -ManagedInstanceName ps3698 -Name d0f5bef5-e2b1-4ef8-bb42-2e54073874f9
Alberto Morillo
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