on the Azure Sql Server, why sysdb is created and what is it's purpose?

Question

I create a serverless Azure Sql server let say called ABC, but it seems that another database is created as well in the group resource called sysdb. Can't recall that I created this one. What is it's purpose

Answer 1

In Azure SQL Database, you don't have the full suite of system databases that you might expect from an on-premises SQL Server installation (like master, model, msdb, and tempdb). Instead, you primarily deal with the database you created and some managed aspects behind the scenes by Azure.

However, "sysdb" is not a standard system database that comes with Azure SQL Database out-of-the-box. Azure SQL Database does not create a database named "sysdb" by default.

Some tools or deployment scripts might create auxiliary databases for their operations. Check if any software, deployment scripts, or processes you used might have created this database.

It's possible that someone else with access to your Azure subscription or your Azure SQL server might have created it, either manually or through some automated process.

If you have integrated your Azure SQL server with other Azure services or tools, they might have created this database for logging, monitoring, or other operational purposes. However, as of my last update in January 2022, no Azure service automatically creates a "sysdb" database.

Answer 2

@Basil Yu Thank you for reaching out.

My understanding is that you are trying to find out why the database sysdb got created after you created an Azure SQL Database.

SQL Server includes the following system databases.

master Database	Records all the system-level information for an instance of SQL Server.
msdb Database	Is used by SQL Server Agent for scheduling alerts and jobs.
model Database	Is used as the template for all databases created on the instance of SQL Server. Modifications made to the model database, such as database size, collation, recovery model, and other database options, are applied to any databases created afterward.
Resource Database	Is a read-only database that contains system objects that are included with SQL Server. System objects are physically persisted in the Resource database, but they logically appear in the sys schema of every database.
tempdb Database	Is a workspace for holding temporary objects or intermediate result sets.

But when it comes to Azure SQL Database single databases and elastic pools, only master Database and tempdb Database apply. For Azure SQL Managed Instance, all system databases apply.

You can also try to find out if someone who has access to your subscription created the sys database by enabling auditing enabling auditing tracks database events and write them to audit log which can be stored into Azure storage account, Log Analytics workspace or Event Hubs.

You can take this s an example https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-database-support-blog/learning-from-expertise-2-who-dropped-my-azure-sql-db/ba-p/2149276 and modified the query to create instead of Drop.

This could also be due as @Amira Bedhiafi mentioned above that some deployment auxiliary might have caused that. Please do also check that.

Regards,

Oury