Connecting WSUS to an Azure Server 2016 + SQL 2016 template VM Error- A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections.

Scenario

When configuring our new Azure VM’s created using the Server 2016+SQL 2016 template, we ran into an issue during the WSUS configuration of connecting the DB instance to a SQL server.

 

Environment

WSUS Server – Server 2016

SQL Server – SQL 2016 + Server 2016 Azure template.

 

Error

A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections.

 

Resolution

Servername\MSSQLServer – Failed

Servername – Failed

IP Address\MSSQLServer – Failed

IP Address –

 

Works

After validating the SQL network configuration was correct (multiple times), I was still unable to connect WSUS to the SQL instance.  After trial and error just using the IP address worked.  Validated DNS is functioning based on other connections using server name*