Azure SQL Managed Instance Performance Monitoring Preview: KQL Setup and Dashboard Limits

What administrators can investigate​

Microsoft documents six available Managed Instance telemetry tables:

• SqlServerCPUUtilization
• SqlServerWaitStats
• SqlServerPerformanceCountersCommon
• SqlServerPerformanceCountersDetailed
• SqlServerStorageIO
• SqlServerActiveSessions

Query text, execution plans and per-query statistics are outside this telemetry; Microsoft directs administrators to Query Store for those details.

The practical distinction is worth keeping straight: this preview can help establish where to investigate, rather than provide every answer about an individual query.

Enabling collection is instance-wide​

Microsoft’s enablement procedure sets the MS_EnablePerformanceMonitoringPreview extended property to true in the managed instance’s master database. The documented script uses sys.sp_updateextendedproperty when the property exists and sys.sp_addextendedproperty otherwise. Administrators should use an account authorized to make that database change.

Unlike Azure SQL Database’s per-user-database procedure, this setting covers the entire managed instance. To stop collection, set the property to false in master. Microsoft says enabling monitoring carries no additional cost and requires no customer-maintained monitoring agents or data stores.

Verify telemetry—not just the setting​

Microsoft’s query prerequisites require subscription-level Azure RBAC Reader or higher, registration of the Microsoft.Sql resource provider, and a Microsoft Entra account. In the Azure Data Explorer web interface:

1. Select Add > Connection.
2. Enter [url]https://adx.centralus.arcdataservices.com/kusto/[/url].
3. Select the ArcSqlTelemetry database.

The Kusto.Explorer desktop application is not supported.

This adaptation of Microsoft’s connection-test query limits results to Managed Instance and shows the latest CPU sample:

SqlServerCPUUtilization
| where SampleTimeUTC > ago(15m)
| where ResourceType == "managedInstances"
| summarize LastSampleUTC = max(SampleTimeUTC) by ResourceID

Recent rows confirm visible telemetry. An empty result is not a clean bill of health: check monitoring enablement, subscription permissions, provider registration and the selected time window.

Preview boundaries matter​

Microsoft lists supported commercial Azure regions, including East US, East US 2 and the West US regions; government, sovereign and air-gapped clouds are excluded. Microsoft also says collection excludes personal data and customer content, with data at rest remaining within the monitored resource’s geography.

The endpoint and schema can change during preview. There is also an analytical trap: wait statistics and storage I/O counters are cumulative, so summing successive samples produces misleading totals; calculate changes between samples and account for resets instead.

For administrators, the sensible evaluation is narrow: establish that collection works, inspect the available signals, and assess whether KQL adds useful visibility. Keep Query Store alongside it—and treat preview-dependent dashboards as experiments, not operational bedrock.