Isolate Performance Problems Through Monitoring | DP-300 Lab 06 | Azure SQL | 2026

Welcome to Lab 06 of the DP-300 Implement Scalable Database Solutions Using Azure SQL Certification series! In this hands-on lab, you'll identify and isolate performance problems in Azure SQL Database by generating CPU load using T-SQL queries, monitoring CPU utilization metrics in the Azure Portal, and using Query Performance Insight to identify high-CPU queries — essential skills for every Azure Database Administrator. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📚 WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THIS VIDEO ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ Clone the DP-300 lab repository and deploy Azure SQL using PowerShell ✅ Configure firewall rules to allow client IP access ✅ Use Azure Portal Query Editor (preview) to run T-SQL queries ✅ Generate CPU load using a WHILE loop query (10,000 iterations) ✅ Monitor CPU utilization metrics (Average CPU %) in Azure Portal ✅ Identify CPU spikes in the Metrics graph during query execution ✅ Use Query Performance Insight to identify high CPU queries ✅ Understand how Query Store tracks DML statements for performance analysis ✅ Analyse query duration and execution count in Query Performance Insight ✅ Understand why high execution count causes CPU issues — not just single query cost ✅ Clean up Azure resources after lab completion ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🛠️ KEY CONCEPTS COVERED IN THIS LAB ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔹 Azure Portal Query Editor — T-SQL execution in browser 🔹 CPU Load Generation — WHILE loop (10,000 iterations) 🔹 Azure Metrics — CPU Percentage with Average aggregation 🔹 Query Performance Insight — high CPU query identification 🔹 Query Store — DML tracking (SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE) 🔹 Performance Analysis: • CPU spike identification • Query duration analysis • Execution count vs single query cost ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ ESTIMATED LAB DURATION ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🕐 Approximately 30 minutes ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 IMPORTANT LINKS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📖 Microsoft Learn Lab : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/tra... 💻 Github Link : https://microsoftlearning.github.io/d... ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📌 EXAM TIPS FOR DP-300 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 💡 Query Performance Insight relies on Query Store data — Query Store only tracks DML statements (SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, MERGE) and ignores DDL. Know this limitation for exam scenarios. 💡 High CPU utilization can be caused by a single expensive query OR by a query executed thousands of times — understand both patterns for performance troubleshooting questions. 💡 Azure Metrics provides real-time and historical performance data — know which metrics are available for Azure SQL Database (CPU %, DTU %, Data IO %, Log IO %). 💡 Query Performance Insight is available for Azure SQL Database (PaaS) but not directly for SQL on Azure VM (IaaS) — know this distinction for the exam. 💡 The Azure Portal Query Editor is a preview feature — for production workloads, SSMS or Azure Data Studio are the recommended tools. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔔 DON'T FORGET ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👍 Like this video if it helped you 🔔 Subscribe & hit the bell so you don't miss the next lab 💬 Got questions? Drop them in the comments — I reply to every one! ⏮️ PREVIOUS VIDEO → Lab 05: Enable Microsoft Defender for SQL & Data Classification ▶️ NEXT VIDEO → Lab 07: Detect and Correct Fragmentation Issues #DP300 #AzureSQL #QueryPerformanceInsight #CPUMonitoring #AzureSQLPerformance #QueryStore #AzureMetrics #PerformanceTuning #AzureDBA #MicrosoftAzure #AzureCertification #MicrosoftLearn #CloudDatabase #ExamPrep2026 #DatabaseMonitoring