Authentication

Authentication refers to how a user identifies themselves when connecting to a database. There are two types of authentication mechanism: SQL Server authentication and Azure Active Directory authentication.

SQL Authentication

This is similar to what we have in on-premise SQL servers; that is, it requires a username and password. When provisioning an Azure SQL database, you have to provide a server admin login with a username and password. This user has admin access to the Azure SQL server and dbowner access on all databases in a particular Azure SQL server.

There can be only one server admin account in an Azure SQL database.

Azure Active Directory Authentication

Azure Active Directory authentication allows users to connect to an Azure SQL database by using the identities stored in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD).

Azure AD

When you create an Azure account, it creates a default directory for your account. This is where you can add users and give them permissions to access different...