Alex,
Thanks for contacting Forum support. In the above response by Mekh, he has suggested to open a support ticket for a specific reason
1. SQLPackage.exe doesn't have it's own logging.
2. However if you open a support ticket, we will be able to sql database gateway logs and SQL performance logs which
could have an impact on the SQLPackage.exe.
This post might seem repetitive but it's because of the fact that, the error message is "Could not extract package from specified database. Unable to reconnect to database: Timeout expired." This could mean many things which Mekh has
been discussing with you throughout the post.
One quick question here:
1. What is the frequency of this failing using SQLPackage.exe? (If I remember correctly, this tool is working fine with many other databases. have you tried and found out what is the outstanding change of this DB when compared to other DBs?)
2. When the SQLPackage.exe failed, how was the database performance? Was it over-loaded?
3. Was there any outages at that time? (http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/service-dashboard/)
4. Sometimes, the Dashboard doesn't list all the outages if the impact is not huge in which cases, opening a support ticket helps. The support team contacts the Operations team (who manage the data-center machines) and if required, they involve the Product
Group developers in extreme situations.
5. This is a repetition; the SQLPackage.exe import/export of bacpac/dacpac doesn't have a 'Operation ID'. That means, we cannot trace the failure to check why there was a Timeout/connection issue/performance issue/queue length issue etc.
Again, SQLPackage.exe is not the only tool out there. We strongly recommend you to use tools like Export, Automated exports etc.
With the new SQL Azure DB announcements, you actually don't even need to make a copy of the database using SQLPackage.exe. You can use the Geo-restore/Deleted databases/Restore feature in case of disasters (/Oops delete). For a new service tier database
(Basic/Standard/Premium), we internally maintain backups and in case you need to restore the database, you can use the 'Restore' functionality to restore the database to a point 7 days (Basic tier), 15 days (Standard) and up to 35 days (Premium tier). This
very feature itself solves your very problem of performing an export using SQLPackage.exe. (http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2014/09/13/azure-sql-database-geo-restore/)
Said that, if you open a support incident, the team will be able to talk to you over the phone and spend good amount of time, have a screen-sharing session, having 1:1 follow-ups, escalation routes etc.
I hope this reply helps you and I hope you will be able to make better business decisions with tools such as SQLPackage.exe itself.
-Karthik (KKB)
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Proposed as answer by
Mekh SubbaMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator
Friday, December 19, 2014 7:22 AM
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Marked as answer by
Mekh SubbaMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator
Wednesday, December 24, 2014 8:25 AM
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Unmarked as answer by
Alex71938
Wednesday, December 24, 2014 8:30 AM