Creating Managed Identities for Azure Synapse using Azure CLI

Managed Identities for Azure resources is a feature of Azure Active Directiry (AAD). Managed identities eliminate the limitations of user-based authentication methods, like the need to reauthenticate due to password changes or user token expirations. 

A managed identity is a managed application registered in Azure Active Directory that represents a given Azure resource and in this case Azure Synpase. The managed application is used to authenticate to a targeted resource. In this article we talk about creating the managed identity for Azure Synpase using Azure CLI.

One of the biggest advantage for using Managed Identities is the ability to get Azure deployments fully automated.

Requirements

1. An Azure Subscription

2. An Azure Synapse Resource.

Steps to create Managed Identity are as follows:

1. Log in to the Azure Portal.

2 In the Search on the top enter "Synpase". Select Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL DW)

3. Click on the Azure Synpase you want to create the Managed Identity for.

4. Note down the following information:-

    a. Subscription ID

    b. Resource Group Name.

    c. Server Name. The value will be without ".database.windows.net" 

2. Click on 1 to launch Azure CLI. 

3. The Azure CLI will look below once opened.

4. We are going to use Powershell so we will be changing from "Bash" to "Powershell". 

5. Click "Confirm" to switch to Powershell. 

6. After successfully connecting to Powershell you should see the following screen. 

7. Next step is Authentication. Enter the command Connect-AzAccount and hit Enter.

8. You will see a message asking to open a web browser and enter the the Code to authenticate.Note: After entering the Code you might be asked to select the accoutnt for your subscription.

9 After performing step 8 you will see the subscription information. This would be the subscription that you are signed to.

10. If the default subscription selected is not the right subscription, then we need to select the right Subscription in which Azure Synpase resource is set up.

14. To select the right Subscription. Enter the command Select-AzSubscription -SubscriptionId <Subscription ID from step 4> 

15. Enter the command Set-AzSqlServer -ResourceGroupName <Resource group from step 4> -ServerName <Server name from step 4> -AssignIdentity and hit enter. If the command is successful the following information will show up.