Private Preview for External REST Endpoint Invocation with Azure SQL Managed Instance

Brian Spendolini

April 22nd, 20240 2

We have an exciting opportunity for customers and partners to use External REST Endpoint Invocation with Azure SQL Managed Instance in a private preview.

What is Azure SQL Managed Instance?

Azure SQL Managed Instance is a PaaS service that has near 100% compatibility with the latest Enterprise Edition SQL Server database engine, providing a native virtual network (VNet) implementation that addresses common security concerns, and a business model favorable to existing SQL Server customers. SQL Managed Instance allows existing SQL Server customers to lift and shift their on-premises applications to the cloud with minimal application and database changes. At the same time, SQL Managed Instance provides all PaaS capabilities (automatic patching and version updates, automated backups, high availability) to drastically reduce management overhead and the total cost of ownership (TCO).

SQL Managed Instance is designed for customers looking to migrate a large number of apps from an on-premises or IaaS, self-built, or ISV provided environment to a fully managed PaaS cloud environment, with as low a migration effort as possible. Using the fully automated Azure Data Migration Service, or the Managed Instance link, customers can lift and shift their existing SQL Server database or SQL Server instance to Azure SQL Managed Instance, which offers compatibility with SQL Server and complete isolation of customer instances with native VNet support.

If you’re new to Azure SQL Managed Instance, check out the Azure SQL Managed Instance video from our in-depth Azure SQL video series.

What is External REST Endpoint Invocation?

External REST Endpoint Invocation makes it possible for developers to call REST/GraphQL endpoints from other Azure Services from right in the Azure SQL Database. With a quick call to the system stored procedure sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint, you can have data processed via an Azure Function, update a PowerBI dashboard, or even talk to Cognitive Services. In fact, in the most recent update, we enabled access to OpenAI, Azure Blob Storage, Azure Files, Azure Queue Services and Azure Table Services. This feature also supports header and managed identity authentication, so you can get rid of passing pesky passwords.

Use cases for this feature are many and here are a few to get your creative spark going:

Activate workflows

Send an email / notification using Azure Logic Apps

Azure OpenAI Tasks

Call Azure OpenAI service endpoints for chat sessions, content safety evaluation, PII detection, and more

Data enrichment

Determine if a value is an outlier or not using Azure Cognitive services
Perform reverse geocoding using Azure Functions
Call a REST/GraphQL service to add external information (eg: weather, reviews, etc) to your data

Cache invalidation / update

For cache invalidation or update by calling an Azure Function

Start complex processing

Call a Durable Function to kick of some complex process

Update websites

Broadcast a SignalR message

Integrate with event-based architectures

Send data to Event Hubs for further integration options

Create a data stream

Send data to Stream Analytics for further investigation/fraud detection

We are currently accepting customers and partners who would like to participate in the private preview and try out the External REST Endpoint Invocation in Azure SQL Managed Instance. If interested, please fill out this form.

Or use this QR Code!