The Azure SQL database export/import process might sometimes take a lot of time

We have several cases Our customers have reported experiencing delays while exporting/importing through the portal. We would like to take advantage of this opportunity. We explain why this happens and provide some recommendations to optimize this process.

The Azure SQL Database Import/Export service provides a limited number of compute virtual machines (VMs) per region to handle import and export operations. Compute VMs are hosted regionally to ensure that imports or exports avoid cross-region bandwidth latency and charges. If too many requests are made simultaneously in the same region, significant delays in processing operations can occur. The time required to complete a request can vary from a few seconds to several hours.

To mitigate this, we highly recommend using the SQLPackage utility to export and import Azure SQL databases. The SQLPackage utility allows you to expedite import/export operations by running multiple commands in parallel against multiple subsets of tables. It is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux and can be integrated into your development pipeline.

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

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

Get parameters and properties to import a SQL Server database using SQLPackage.

SqlPackage in the development pipeline