Connecting a BC container to an external SQL server

As part of my DynamicsCon session in September 2021, I wanted to show how you can connect a Business Central container to an existing SQL Server. Unfortunately, I ran out of time and couldn’t show that demo, so I’ll quickly show it here.

The TL;DR

You just use a couple of parameters for New-BCContainer. As an example, here I am connecting to a SQL Server on IP 172.29.148.76 with an unnamed instance, database name cronus and I enter the credentials in a credential popup

New-BcContainer -accept_eula -containerName externalSql -imageName mybc:18.3.27240.27480-w1 `
    -databaseServer 172.29.148.76 -databaseInstance "" -databaseName cronus `
    -databaseCredential (Get-Credential -Message "SQL Server Credentials") `
    -auth NavUserPassword

You can find a quick walkthrough here and you will notice at the end that between Starting Container and Starting Service Tier there is no Starting local SQL Server like you would typically see, because the BC container knows not to start the included SQL Server, if you are connecting to an external SQL Server.

The Details

Well, there aren’t any details… If you want more context, I would suggest to watch my DynamicsCon session. I’ll share the link to the recording on YouTube as soon as it appears, the slides are already available here and slide 29 would have been the one where I would have liked to show this as well.