Azure Insights: Arc SQL extension; AKS daemon sets; Event Grid domain monitoring

Azure pros discuss best practices when using the Azure Arc SQL extension, setting high priority for AKS daemon sets, and configuring Event Grid domain monitoring.

Best practices when using the Azure Arc SQL extension

Writing on the Azure Field Notes Blog, Matthew Quickenden explored best practices when layering Azure Arc on top of a SQL extension to centralize a view of SQL servers and databases. A prebuilt Best practices assessment tool is available, although only for SQL Server with Software Assurance, SQL subscriptions, and Azure pay-as-you-go billing.

Users can run a query against Azure Resource Graph to see all of the available licenses. Quickenden demonstrated how to configure the licenses for the best practices option, change the SQL Server registration to automatically handle licensing selection, and enable the assessment to choose a Log Analytics workspace.

“Depending on the size of the servers and the number of databases it might take a while to run. The default schedule is weekly but adjustable…You can look at the query that is integrating the SqlAssessment_CL table. The data is being dumped into a single RawData field that needs to be parsed. This query will help you get a jump start on accessing the data,” he wrote.

Setting high priority for AKS daemon sets

Microsoft MVP Richard Hooper, writing on Pixel Robots,  discussed an advantage of Azure Kubernetes Service: starting daemon sets reliably after the system sleeps overnight to save on costs. Daemon sets are a workload that ensure a particular pod gets deployed and is up and running on in a cluster. Users like Hooper prefer them to run cluster-level tasks, conduct monitoring, and log agents. He wrote: