Change default collation when provisioning a SQL Server VM in the Azure portal

Question

Is there a way to change the default SQL collation directly from the "Create virtual machine" wizard in Azure ? The SQL VM images from the gallery are set for SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS.

Browsing through the wizard's SQL Server settings, there's nothing on collation. I've also searched through the parameters (listed below) in the generated templates, but again nothing on collation. Am I missing some hidden way of doing this ? Using SQL 2016 right now, but seems to be the same for other versions.

    "sqlConnectivityType": {
        "type": "string"
    },
    "sqlPortNumber": {
        "type": "int"
    },
    "sqlStorageDisksCount": {
        "type": "int"
    },
    "sqlStorageWorkloadType": {
        "type": "string"
    },
    "sqlStorageDisksConfigurationType": {
        "type": "string"
    },
    "sqlStorageStartingDeviceId": {
        "type": "int"
    },
    "sqlStorageDeploymentToken": {
        "type": "int"
    },
    "sqlAutopatchingDayOfWeek": {
        "type": "string"
    },
    "sqlAutopatchingStartHour": {
        "type": "string"
    },
    "sqlAutopatchingWindowDuration": {
        "type": "string"
    },

Later edit October 2018: Checked again and still no collation options in the wizard or template.

Answer 1

If you are going to utilize the images from Azure marketplace for building your SQL Server instances, I'm not aware of any options to change the server collation. Since the image has SQL Server installed already your only option will probably be to just follow the process to change the default server collation after the VM is provisioned. Which requires rebuilding the system databases. You could add this into your build so it executes the needed commands, but you would have to have the installation media available for that version of SQL Server.

Answer 2

As a supplement to the OP and answer, please upvote this Azure Feedback item:

• https://feedback.azure.com/forums/216843-virtual-machines/suggestions/36616876-it-would-be-great-to-have-the-possibility-to-choos

Microsoft docs provide the full list of the available properties when creating a SQL virtual machine in Azure:

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-ca/azure/templates/microsoft.sqlvirtualmachine/2017-03-01-preview/sqlvirtualmachines

There are relatively few pure SQL properties as of this writing

  "properties": {
    "virtualMachineResourceId": "string",
    "sqlImageOffer": "string",
    "sqlServerLicenseType": "string",
    "sqlManagement": "string",
    "sqlImageSku": "string",
    "sqlVirtualMachineGroupResourceId": "string",
    ...