Feature | Split Entra auth functionality into a separate NuGet Package

[SimonCropp]

why does Microsoft.Data.SqlClient v3 reference Azure.Identity?

Edited by @mdaigle:
The scope of this work is splitting entra authentication methods (e.g. Authentication=ActiveDirectoryDefault or Authentication=Active Directory Managed Identity in the connection string) into a separate Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.Extensions.Azure package. As a consequence, Azure.Identity, Azure.Core, and Microsoft.Identity.Client dependencies are removed from the core Microsoft.Data.SqlClient package.

This work is available as of version 7.0.0. Customers who rely on entra authentication methods should take a dependency on Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.Extensions.Azure. See release notes for additional details.

Removal of Microsoft.IdentityModel.XXX dependencies is tracked separately under #4017.

[SimonCropp]

found my answer #1010. so will close this. it still seems very weird to me that a sql client should have a dependency on a cloud infrastructure library. For hypothetical comparison, would it be ok to also take dependencies on google and aws libraries.

[David-Engel]

@SimonCropp Microsoft.Data.SqlClient also provides connectivity to Azure cloud services (Azure SQL DB, Azure Synapse Analytics, etc) that are very similar to SQL Server on-premise. The Azure.Identity library provides authentication functionality for those Azure services.

[virzak]

I was also wondering if there is a way to separate functionality into multiple DLLs, i.e.

• Microsoft.Data.SqlClient
• Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.Azure

With .Net 5, a project which uses this library and doesn't use Azure gets at least 3 new unused DLLs in the bin directory:
Azure.Core.dll
Azure.Identity.dll
Microsoft.Bcl.AsyncInterfaces.dll

[SimonCropp]

i had the same expectation as @virzak

[virzak]

@SimonCropp reopen then? :)

[SimonCropp]

@virzak i think i have raised my concerns. if the sql client team think they should be address, then they can re-open the issue

[cheenamalhotra]

We are considering this internally, timeline not certain yet. But we can reopen for sure!

[mtaylorfsmb]

Agree with others. This library is supposed to be replacement for the standard library already in the framework. Azure support is fine but shouldn't be auto-included in a "core" package. This would be equivalent to having the core framework depend upon Azure as well. If my app is using AWS or GCP then having an Azure dependency looks wrong.

[aersam]

Agree, too. Mostly because of the dependencies Azure.Identity brings in. There are really many packages needed for Microsoft.Data.SqlClient