If you get an error that reads The statement BACKUP LOG is not allowed while the recovery model is SIMPLE when trying to back up a database in SQL Server or Azure SQL Edge, it’s because you’re trying to back up the transaction logs on a database that uses the simple recovery model.
To fix this, change the recovery model to either full or bulk logging.
Most of the major RDBMSs provide several options for concatenating two or more strings.
CONCAT() function, which concatenates its arguments.CONCAT_WS() that allows you to specify a separator that separates the concatenated strings.Below are examples of each method.
Microsoft Azure SQL Edge’s backup capabilities are similar to those in SQL Server on Linux, and SQL Server running in containers.
Azure SQL Edge supports T-SQL, and so you can back up your SQL Edge databases by running a T-SQL statement.
In this article, I back up a SQL Edge database to the local disk in my Docker container.
By default, databases created in Azure SQL Edge use the simple recovery model. This means that you can’t perform log backups on these databases.
Fortunately, you can change a database’s recovery model to full recovery mode, which will enable you to back up the logs.
By default, databases created with Azure SQL Edge use the simple recovery model. This means that you can’t perform log backups on these databases.
If you need to perform log backups on a database created with SQL Edge, you’ll need to change the recovery model of the database to either full or bulk logged.
This can be done with T-SQL with the ALTER DATABASE statement.
T-SQL includes a DATE_BUCKET() function that allows you to arrange data into groups that represent fixed intervals of time. It returns the datetime value that corresponds to the start of each datetime bucket, as defined by the arguments passed to the function.
As far as I’m aware, the DATE_BUCKET() function is only available in Azure SQL Edge at the time of this writing.
Update: DATE_BUCKET() was introduced in SQL Server 2022.
Update January 2026: When I wrote this article in 2021, the full SQL Server image couldn’t be installed on Apple Silicon machines (the M1 Macs). We had to install SQL Edge instead, which is why I wrote this article. Fortunately, things have progressed since then, and we can now install the full SQL Server image on Apple Silicon machines (including M1, M2, M3, M4).
Therefore, I recommend you read How to Install SQL Server on a Mac in 2026 instead of this article. It’s a very similar process to the one outlined in this article, but it actually installs SQL Server instead of SQL Edge (which has since been retired).