This issue may not be directly related to this SQLMLUTILS, but maybe you would be able to provide some context or a potential solution.

As we install more libraries, especially tidyverse which installs 70+ sub packages, execution of even the most basic R script goes from sub second execution to 7+ seconds.

Here is the installation script:

library(sqlmlutils)

connection <- connectionInfo(
  server   = "XXXXXX",
  database = "XXXXXX")

r = getOption("repos")
r["CRAN"] = "https://mran.microsoft.com/snapshot/2019-02-01"
options(repos = r)

pkgs <- c("tictoc", "data.table", "tidyverse", "zoo", "DBI")
sql_install.packages(connectionString = connection, pkgs = pkgs, verbose = TRUE, scope = "PUBLIC")

The R script I am testing with is:

EXECUTE sp_execute_external_script @language = N'R'
    , @script = N'
a <- 1
b <- 2
c <- a/b
d <- a*b
print(c(c, d))
'

As a separate test on the same server to rule out any issues with the packages, I installed the packages using the process documented for SQL Server 2017 which installs packages globally for all databases, the script executes in sub seconds times.

Script to test global installation of packages:

r = getOption("repos")
r["CRAN"] = "https://mran.microsoft.com/snapshot/2019-02-01"
options(repos = r)

pkgs <- c("tictoc", "data.table", "tidyverse", "zoo", "DBI")
install.packages(pkgs)

This would be fine, but our plan is to run the database in SQL Managed Instance on Azure and this global approach is not an option. By the way, I did try the test of running the simple script before and after installing packages on Azure and experienced the same behavior, less than a second before packages, 7+ seconds after packages.

Any guidance you could provide would be great!