The databases for server swem5alhxj located in region North Central US for subscription could not be retrieved. Please wait a few minutes and then try this operation again. For more information about Microsoft Azure service availability, visit the Microsoft Azure Service Dashboard. 

I've been waiting over 30 minutes for something to happen here. The service dashboard isn't showing any issues.

Do I need to spend $300 so that I can call somebody about this? This is terrible.

Hello and thank you for reaching out and sorry for the inconvenience.

North Central US is experiencing a performance degradation. The status has been posted on the dashboard a few minutes ago: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/status/

Thanks,

Jan

• Marked as answer by Casey KarstMicrosoft employee, Moderator 10 hours 31 minutes ago

Hello and thank you for reaching out and sorry for the inconvenience.

North Central US is experiencing a performance degradation. The status has been posted on the dashboard a few minutes ago: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/status/

Thanks,

Jan

• Marked as answer by Casey KarstMicrosoft employee, Moderator 10 hours 21 minutes ago

Hello and thank you for reaching out and sorry for the inconvenience.

North Central US is experiencing a performance degradation. The status has been posted on the dashboard a few minutes ago: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/status/

Thanks,

Jan

• Marked as answer by Casey KarstMicrosoft employee, Moderator Thursday, April 30, 2015 8:45 PM

Hello and thank you for reaching out and sorry for the inconvenience.

North Central US is experiencing a performance degradation. The status has been posted on the dashboard a few minutes ago: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/status/

Thanks,

Jan

• Marked as answer by Casey KarstMicrosoft employee, Moderator Thursday, April 30, 2015 8:45 PM

Hello and thank you for reaching out and sorry for the inconvenience.

North Central US is experiencing a performance degradation. The status has been posted on the dashboard a few minutes ago: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/status/

Thanks,

Jan

• Marked as answer by Casey KarstMicrosoft employee, Moderator Thursday, April 30, 2015 8:45 PM

Hello and thank you for reaching out and sorry for the inconvenience.

North Central US is experiencing a performance degradation. The status has been posted on the dashboard a few minutes ago: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/status/

Thanks,

Jan

• Marked as answer by Casey KarstMicrosoft employee, Moderator Thursday, April 30, 2015 8:45 PM

Hello and thank you for reaching out and sorry for the inconvenience.

North Central US is experiencing a performance degradation. The status has been posted on the dashboard a few minutes ago: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/status/

Thanks,

Jan

• Marked as answer by Casey KarstMicrosoft employee, Moderator Thursday, April 30, 2015 8:45 PM

Would having GEO-REPLICATION turned on for this database have eliminated this issue?

Or does the geo-redundancy stuff only kick in when there's a catastrophic failure?

• Edited by VETEZE 9 hours 40 minutes ago

Would having GEO-REPLICATION turned on for this database have eliminated this issue?

Or does the geo-redundancy stuff only kick in when there's a catastrophic failure?

• Edited by VETEZE 9 hours 30 minutes ago

Failing over to a geo-replicated databases can be done at any point in time. All you have to do is to terminate the replication which makes the secondary database a standalone database that can be used.

Please refer to the geo-replication documentation for more details on this: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azure/dn783447.aspx

Would having GEO-REPLICATION turned on for this database have eliminated this issue?

Or does the geo-redundancy stuff only kick in when there's a catastrophic failure?

• Edited by VETEZE Thursday, April 30, 2015 9:36 PM

Would having GEO-REPLICATION turned on for this database have eliminated this issue?

Or does the geo-redundancy stuff only kick in when there's a catastrophic failure?

• Edited by VETEZE Thursday, April 30, 2015 9:36 PM

Would having GEO-REPLICATION turned on for this database have eliminated this issue?

Or does the geo-redundancy stuff only kick in when there's a catastrophic failure?

• Edited by VETEZE Thursday, April 30, 2015 9:36 PM

Would having GEO-REPLICATION turned on for this database have eliminated this issue?

Or does the geo-redundancy stuff only kick in when there's a catastrophic failure?

• Edited by VETEZE Thursday, April 30, 2015 9:36 PM

Would having GEO-REPLICATION turned on for this database have eliminated this issue?

Or does the geo-redundancy stuff only kick in when there's a catastrophic failure?

• Edited by VETEZE Thursday, April 30, 2015 9:36 PM

The below blob post describes the failover scenarios and when Microsoft will initiate failovers of databases.

http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2014/09/03/azure-sql-database-standard-geo-replication/