Azure SQL database auto-pause is enabled, however database is coming online in early hours

Question

I have an Azure SQL database set up in a test resource group, and I am the only person that should be able to access it, or should want to access it. The auto-pause feature is enabled (1 hour inactivity), but I wanted to double-check so looked at the status of the resource at roughly 11pm and saw that it was indeed offline. I checked again at 1am, and now it is online.

What would be causing the database to come back online at this time of night when I know there are no active connections, queries or sessions to make it auto-resume? This is causing it to accrue unnecessary cost, and the fact that it is coming online during the early hours of the morning when there is no one to check it is suspicious to me. To reiterate, I am the only person with access to it, or who even knows of its existence, and there are no processes or services hooked up to it, so there is absolutely no reason for it to be online as I know for a fact that there should be no activity on the database, unless related to self maintenance?

Can anyone suggest to me why it would be auto-resuming in the middle of the night when there should be zero activity?

Answer 1

Please examine Azure Defender for SQL as it runs periodic scans including vulnerability scans and the threat detection feature also can create activity.

Auto-resuming is triggered if any of the following conditions are true: Data discovery and classification, Auditing, Data masking, Transparent data encryption, Vulnerability assessment and Auto-tuning. Disable these features on the Azure Portal. Here you can find a full list of Azure SQL features that can auto-resume the database.