Maintenance

Overview

This article covers routine maintenance tasks for a Turbo360 private hosting instance. It includes database maintenance, storage management, function app health checks, log retention, and scheduled downtime guidance. These tasks keep your private instance performing reliably and prevent storage or resource exhaustion over time.

Business value

Routine maintenance prevents avoidable failures — database bloat, storage quota exhaustion, and stale application state — that degrade Turbo360 performance or cause unexpected downtime. Proactive maintenance also simplifies troubleshooting by keeping logs, metrics, and resource utilisation within expected bounds.

Prerequisites

• Contributor access to the Turbo360 resource group in the Azure portal
• Access to the Turbo360 portal (Platform Administrator role)
• Familiarity with the Azure portal for resource-level operations

Required permissions

How it works

A Turbo360 private instance consists of Azure-managed resources — App Service, SQL Database, Storage Account, Application Insights, and Log Analytics — plus the Turbo360 application layer running on top. Maintenance tasks target both layers.

Azure-managed resources (SQL, Storage, App Service) handle most infrastructure-level concerns automatically, including backups, OS patching, and scaling. Maintenance tasks that require your action are those specific to the Turbo360 workload: data retention, log management, application restarts, and storage cleanup.

Maintenance tasks

Database maintenance

The Turbo360 SQL database accumulates historical data over time — monitoring history, cost analysis records, BAM transaction logs. Retention policies control how much data is stored.

To check database size:

1. In the Azure portal, navigate to your SQL database resource.
2. Under Monitoring, select Metrics.
3. Add the Database size percentage metric to confirm the database is not approaching the tier limit.

Storage account maintenance

The Storage Account hosts deployment packages and application data. Over time, orphaned blobs or large log exports may consume unexpected space.

To review storage consumption:

1. In the Azure portal, navigate to the Storage Account in your Turbo360 resource group.
2. Select Storage browser > Blob containers.
3. Identify containers with unexpectedly large sizes.

To clean up orphaned blobs, delete temporary or test blobs that are no longer referenced by any active Function App deployment. Do not delete containers prefixed with azure-webjobs or turbo360- unless directed by Turbo360 support.

Application restart

Restart the Web App and Function Apps when:

• You have applied a configuration change that requires a process restart
• The Environment health dashboard shows degraded function app status
• Turbo360 support has advised a restart as part of a troubleshooting step

To restart via the Azure portal:

1. Navigate to the App Service (Web App or Function App) in the Azure portal.
2. Select Overview.
3. Click Restart.

Log retention configuration

Application Insights and Log Analytics accumulate diagnostic data. Default retention is 90 days for Application Insights and 30 days for Log Analytics. Adjust these settings based on your compliance requirements.

To adjust Log Analytics retention:

1. In the Azure portal, navigate to your Log Analytics workspace.
2. Select Usage and estimated costs > Data retention.
3. Set the retention period (minimum 30 days; maximum 730 days for paid tiers).

To adjust Application Insights retention:

1. Navigate to your Application Insights resource.
2. Select Usage and estimated costs > Data retention.
3. Set the retention period.

OS and runtime patching

The Web App and Function Apps run on Azure App Service managed infrastructure. OS and runtime patches are applied automatically by Azure. No manual patching action is required.

To control when runtime updates are applied, configure the Platform update mode setting:

1. In the Azure portal, navigate to the App Service.
2. Select Configuration > General settings.
3. Under Platform update mode, select Manual to defer automatic runtime updates until you explicitly apply them.

Scheduled maintenance windows

If you need to schedule downtime for major configuration changes, upgrades, or infrastructure operations:

1. Notify users in advance via the Turbo360 notification channels or your organization's communication tools.
2. Stop the Web App and all three Function Apps in the Azure portal before making changes.
3. Complete the maintenance task.
4. Start the resources in reverse order: Function Apps first, then the Web App.
5. Verify recovery using the Environment health dashboard in the Turbo360 platform.

Example scenario

A platform engineer notices that the SQL database has grown to 80% capacity after six months of production use. They review the Storage Account for orphaned blobs and remove two unused test containers, and adjust Log Analytics retention from 90 days to 60 days to reduce costs. The database size drops to 55% following the next automated cleanup cycle.

Limitations

• Azure-native retention for SQL backups, Application Insights, and Log Analytics must be configured separately in the Azure portal.
• Restarting Function Apps during active monitoring cycles may cause a brief gap in monitoring data for that cycle. Schedule restarts during low-activity periods when possible.
• Reducing retention periods permanently deletes historical data. Data deleted by retention policy cannot be recovered unless a point-in-time SQL restore is available within the retention window.
• Azure SQL automatic backups are available for point-in-time restore only within the configured retention window (7–35 days for Standard/Premium tier). Long-term retention requires additional Azure Backup configuration.

Troubleshooting

1. Database size approaching tier limit
   Cause: Retention periods are set too high, or historical monitoring data has accumulated without cleanup.
   Fix: Reduce retention periods in Turbo360 portal settings. If the database is at capacity, scale the SQL tier up temporarily in the Azure portal to prevent write failures while cleanup runs.

2. Function App restarting unexpectedly
   Cause: Memory pressure, unhandled exceptions, or a misconfigured App Service health check.
   Fix: Review Application Insights Failures and Performance blades for error patterns. Increase the App Service Plan tier if memory consumption is consistently high.

3. Log Analytics data not appearing after retention change
   Cause: Retention reduction purges data older than the new threshold. This is expected behavior.
   Fix: Retention reduction is irreversible for purged data. Set retention periods before data accrues if long-term log history is required.

4. Web App shows as stopped in the Azure portal after maintenance
   Cause: The App Service was stopped as part of scheduled maintenance and was not restarted.
   Fix: Navigate to the App Service > Overview and click Start. Verify the application is accessible after the start completes.

5. Storage Account shows unexpectedly high consumption
   Cause: Large log export blobs or undeleted staging deployments are consuming storage.
   Fix: Open Storage browser in the Azure portal, identify large containers, and remove orphaned blobs not referenced by active deployments. Do not remove azure-webjobs containers.

FAQs

1. How often should I review database and storage consumption?
   Review monthly for the first six months after deployment to establish baselines. After that, quarterly reviews are sufficient for most production environments unless data volumes change significantly (new modules enabled, subscription count increases).

2. Can I automate maintenance tasks using Azure Automation or Logic Apps?
   Azure-level tasks such as Log Analytics retention and storage cleanup can be automated using Azure Automation runbooks or Logic Apps.

Related articles

• Environment health
• Upgrade
• Backup & recovery
• Infrastructure requirements
• Private hosting architecture