Azure SQL Developer: reliable connections (pooling + retry)

Make the app's database connections reliable with connection pooling and retry / transient-fault handling. This is the Azure SQL engine (Private Preview), not the SQL Server image.

Why do this locally (local-to-cloud parity)

The local container rarely drops a connection, so it is tempting to skip pooling and retry. Do not. Azure SQL Database in the cloud throttles and drops connections during failovers, scaling, and load; a client with no retry surfaces those as hard errors. Build pooling and retry now, against the local container, and the same code survives in the cloud with no rewrite. For the full promote-to-cloud story see the azuresql-db-local-to-cloud skill.

Verify identity once running: SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('EngineEdition') returns 5 and SERVERPROPERTY('Edition') returns 'SQL Azure'. For full engine detail see the azuresql-db-container skill.

The engine and the connection contract