We have some cases when our customers have reported experiencing delays during their export/import activities on the portal. I’d like to take this opportunity  to explain the reasons behind this and offer some recommendations to optimize these processes.

The Azure SQL Database Import/Export service provides a limited number of compute virtual machines (VMs) per region to process import and export operations. The compute VMs are hosted per region to make sure that the import or export avoids cross-region bandwidth delays and charges. If too many requests are made at the same time in the same region, significant delays can occur in processing the operations. The time that’s required to complete requests can vary from a few seconds to many hours.

To mitigate this, we highly recommend using the SQLPackage utility for exporting and importing Azure SQL databases. The SQLPackage utility allows you to run multiple commands in parallel for different subsets of tables, thereby expediting the import/export operations. It is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and can also be integrated into development pipelines.

For more detailed instructions on how to use the SQLPackage command-line utility, please refer to the following resources:

Export parameters and properties to export a SQL Server database using the SQLPackage

Import parameters and properties to import a SQL Server database using the SQLPackage

SqlPackage in development pipelines

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