How can I determine if my environment is PDW (APS) or Azure Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool?

Question

How can I determine if my environment is PDW (APS) or Azure Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool?

Saish Paradkar 20

I'm working on a script that needs to programmatically detect whether the connected environment is:

PDW / Analytics Platform System (on-premise) or
Azure Synapse Analytics Dedicated SQL Pool (cloud)

I’ve already tried checking:

SERVERPROPERTY('EngineEdition') = 6
Edition via SERVERPROPERTY('Edition')

Engine Edition is 6 for both, we can identify by server name but there are migrated instances which are causing issue to identify.
But these return ambiguous results in some environments — especially since the Edition string can vary or change over time.

But would like a clear and supported way (ideally Microsoft-recommended) to distinguish between the two platforms using T-SQL alone.

Venkat Reddy Navari 5,255 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-06T14:25:28.6733333+00:00
Hi Saish Paradkar You're correct that SERVERPROPERTY('EngineEdition') = 6 returns 6 for both PDW (APS) and Azure Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool, which makes direct identification via T-SQL challenging.

As of now, Microsoft does not provide an official T-SQL-only method to conclusively distinguish between the two. However, here are the most reliable approaches currently available:

Server Name Pattern

Use the following to check the server name:

SELECT @@SERVERNAME AS ServerName;

Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool: Usually ends with .sql.azuresynapse.net

PDW (APS): Typically an on-premise naming convention

DMV Behavior

Check for platform-specific metadata:

SELECT * FROM sys.dm_pdw_nodes;

APS often returns multiple physical nodes with distinct naming conventions

Combine with: sys.dm_pdw_nodes_db_file_space_usage, sys.dm_pdw_exec_requests

Script-Based Workaround: Due to ambiguity, consider maintaining an environment tag/config table to help your scripts reliably identify the environment.

I hope this information helps. Please do let us know if you have any further queries.

Kindly consider upvoting the comment if the information provided is helpful. This can assist other community members in resolving similar issues.
Venkat Reddy Navari 5,255 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-07T12:41:48.69+00:00

Saish Paradkar We haven’t heard from you on the last response and was just checking back to see if you have a resolution yet. In case if you have any resolution please do share that same with the community as it can be helpful to others. Otherwise, will respond with more details and we will try to help.

1 answer

Your answer

Venkat Reddy Navari 5,255 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-06T14:25:28.6733333+00:00

Hi Saish Paradkar You're correct that SERVERPROPERTY('EngineEdition') = 6 returns 6 for both PDW (APS) and Azure Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool, which makes direct identification via T-SQL challenging.

As of now, Microsoft does not provide an official T-SQL-only method to conclusively distinguish between the two. However, here are the most reliable approaches currently available:

Server Name Pattern

Use the following to check the server name:

SELECT @@SERVERNAME AS ServerName;

Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool: Usually ends with .sql.azuresynapse.net

PDW (APS): Typically an on-premise naming convention

DMV Behavior

Check for platform-specific metadata:

SELECT * FROM sys.dm_pdw_nodes;

APS often returns multiple physical nodes with distinct naming conventions

Combine with: sys.dm_pdw_nodes_db_file_space_usage, sys.dm_pdw_exec_requests

Script-Based Workaround: Due to ambiguity, consider maintaining an environment tag/config table to help your scripts reliably identify the environment.

I hope this information helps. Please do let us know if you have any further queries.

Kindly consider upvoting the comment if the information provided is helpful. This can assist other community members in resolving similar issues.
Venkat Reddy Navari 5,255 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-07T12:41:48.69+00:00

Saish Paradkar We haven’t heard from you on the last response and was just checking back to see if you have a resolution yet. In case if you have any resolution please do share that same with the community as it can be helpful to others. Otherwise, will respond with more details and we will try to help.

Answer 1

Hello Saish !

Thank you for posting on Microsoft Learn.

You can use @@VERSION to check for Synapse-specific identifiers

SELECT @@VERSION AS VersionInfo;

Azure Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool will return something like:

Microsoft SQL Azure (RTM) - ...

PDW (APS) returns something closer to:

Microsoft SQL Server 2016 (SP2) (Analytics Platform System) ...

You can parse this result with a LIKE condition:

SELECT 
    CASE 
        WHEN @@VERSION LIKE '%Azure%' THEN 'Azure Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool'
        WHEN @@VERSION LIKE '%Analytics Platform System%' THEN 'PDW / APS'
        ELSE 'Unknown'
    END AS EnvironmentType;

The availability or behavior of certain DMVs may differ. For example:

SELECT TOP 1 type FROM sys.dm_pdw_nodes;

This DMV exists on both, but in Azure Synapse, the type column usually shows 'COMPUTE', 'CONTROL' so you could do a combination of such checks.

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How can I determine if my environment is PDW (APS) or Azure Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool?

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