Chapter 12: Managing SQL
Azure Accounts, Databases,
and DataHubs
SQL Azure is the SQL Server team’s name for a set of highly
scalable cloud services based on a customized version of SQL Server 2008
and related services hosted in Microsoft data centers. SQL Azure is
intended to provide the capabilities of an enterprise-grade data center
without the capital cost of its physical facilities or the operating expenses
for its management or maintenance. SQL Azure provides high availability
by replicating a total of three redundant copies of your data to separate
physical servers. SQL Azure achieves scalability while maintaining
transactional consistency by partitioning data into individual 10GB or
smaller databases.
When this chapter was written, only the first of these services—SQL
Azure Database (SADB) v1, a scalable and available relational database—
had been released as a Community Technical Preview (CTP). SADB was
scheduled for commercial availability during Microsoft’s Professional
Developers Conference (PDC) in mid-November 2009.
Ultimately, SQL Azure will consist of the following services:
 SQL Azure Database to provide core SQL Server database
capabilities (release during PDC 2009)
 Data Sync to enable synchronizing cloud and on-premises
databases with the Microsoft Sync Framework to be released
“soon after” PDC 2009
 Secure Data Hub, an “aggregation of enterprise, partner, desktop
and device data within SQL Azure” based on the “Huron”
incubator project with no current CTP or release timetable
 Business Intelligence (BI) and Reporting Services (RS) with no
current CTP or release timetable

This chapter concentrates on creating a SQL Azure account, getting
connected to an SADB v1 server, and creating user databases with SQL
Server Management Studio (SSMS) 2008 [Express] and the sqlcmd utility.
This chapter was written before SADB released to the Web (RTW) as a
commercial product with service fees. When you connect to the commercial
version, the credit card you specify when creating your account will be
charged US$9.99 per month for a database size up to 1GB (Web Edition)
and US$99.99 per month for up to 10GB of space (Business Edition), plus
US$0.10 per GB of data ingress and US$0.15 per GB of data egress.
type="note"
The current version of this chapter is based on the SQL Azure Database
August 2009 CTP. Sections covering the four other SQL Azure elements
will be added to this online chapter as CTPs become available.
Service fees for SADB might change on or after commercial release.
Service-level guarantees specific to SADB were not included in Microsoft’s
“Confirming Commercial Availability and Announcing Business Model” blog
post of July 14, 2009 (http://bit.ly/jee5w,
http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsazure/archive/2009/07/14/c
onfirming-commercial-availability-and-announcingbusiness-model.aspx) .
Tracking SSDS’s Migration to a
Relational Database
Ray Ozzie announced SQL Server Data Services (SSDS) at the
MIX08 conference in Las Vegas during his March 5, 2008 keynote address.
SSDS became available as a CTP later in the first half of 2008 and provided
an on-demand, pay-per-use data model, which offered the following
features:
 A flexible, schemaless entity model that lets users add new
attributes to the entity type when needed; the system indexes the
attributes automatically.
 Simplified data types for attribute values: string, numeric,
datetime, boolean, and binary.
 REST-based and LINQ-like queries; SOAP was also supported.
 Plain old XML (POX) was the only wire format then available;
AtomPub was promised.
 No projections; the unit of storage was a complete entity.
 Highly scalable by partitioning of sizes in the 10s of GB.
 Secure data access with SSL, LiveID authentication, and
authorization at the account (billing unit), authority (collection of
containers), container (set of entity sets), and type (entity type)
levels.
 A promise of data synchronization and bulk uploads with the
Microsoft Sync platform.
type="note"
For more background on the MIX08 SSDS announcement and early
reaction to SSDS in the computer trade press, see the “SQL Server Data
Services to Deliver Entities from the Cloud” post of March 7, 2008, to the
OakLeaf blog (http://bit.ly/SJydJ,
http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/sql-serverdata-services-to-deliver.html) and “Spelunking SQL Server Data
Services” (http://bit.ly/gS7RR,
http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/spelunking-sqlserver-data-services.html).
The initial SSDS architects chose the Entity-Attribute-Value (EAV)
data model implemented by a hierarchical set of Authority, Container, and
Entity (ACE) objects, rather than the traditional relational data model
because EAV databases were understood to be easier to scale out to
extreme sizes typified by Google’s BigTable and Yahoo!’s Hadoop
examples. The problem with this approach was the difficulty that potential
customers encountered when attempting to distinguish SSDS tables from
the similar EAV tables offered by Azure Data Services. Further, the Azure
marketing team was strongly promoting the benefits of leveraging
developers’ experience with .NET programming and Visual Studio to ease
the burden of migrating conventional ASP.NET applications and .NETbased services from on-premises data centers to those in the cloud.
Developers and their management were more interested in leveraging their
relational database design and Transact-SQL (T-SQL) query skills than the
potential for increased scalability. Architects and developers also had
misgivings about the “eventual consistency” properties of EAV tables
rather than the immediate, transactional update consistency of SQL Server
clusters.
type="note"
On October 27, 2008, Ray Ozzie announced that Windows Azure would
be the name of Microsoft’s new Platform as a Service (PaaS) cloud
computing contender. SSDS was renamed SQL Data Services (SDS) at
PDC 2008.
Microsoft’s marketing folks are well known for listening intently to
their users, including millions of developers, and acting on user feedback.
The SSDS team finally understood the error of their EAV approach about
one year later and announced a mid-course correction to their SSDS plans
on March 10, 2009. Also on that day, David Robinson, this book’s
Technical Editor, added “The no spin details on the new SDS features” post
(http://bit.ly/AW3Jm,
http://blogs.msdn.com/ssds/archive/2009/03/10/9469
228.aspx) to what’s now the SQL Azure Team Blog:
Today we announced the details of our plans to accelerate
the delivery of core relational database features as part of
SDS. There has been quite a bit of buzz about SDS over
the past couple weeks and it is great to be able to share the
details more broadly.
If we flash back about a year ago to Mix 08, Nigel Ellis got
up on stage to introduce the community to SDS which, at
the time, was a flexible entity based cloud database that
you accessed using standard internet protocols. We made
this announcement with the promise that more relational
capabilities would be coming - and they did. But the
universal feedback we received from our TAP partners and
other early adopters was the need for a relational database
delivered as a service. This was extremely valuable
feedback and drove us to more aggressively investigate
ways in which we could deliver these features. As a result
of that work and based on the progress we’ve since made in
the product team, we are announcing that SDS will deliver
full relational database capabilities as a service.
The SDS team changed its name and rebranded the service to SQL
Azure on July 9, 2009.
type="note"
For additional details about SDS’s change from the EAV to relational data
model, see the February 24, 2009, “A Mid-Course Correction for SQL Data
Services” (http://bit.ly/85YOa,
http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/mid-coursecorrection-for-sql-data.html) and the March 10, 2009, “SQL
Data Services Abandons REST for TDS API and Knocks My Socks Off”
(http://bit.ly/gWgyB,
http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/sql-dataservices-abandons-rest-for-tds.html) posts.
Reviewing Current SQL Azure
Database Documentation and
Resources
MSDN’s SQL Azure Database documentation, which is available
online at http://bit.ly/12N3Mp,
http://msdn.microsoft.com/enus/library/ee336279.aspx, contains the following chapters:






Introducing SQL Azure Database
SQL Azure Database Concepts
Developer's Guide
Guidelines and Limitations
Transact-SQL Reference
SQL Azure Database Copyright and Legal Information
type="note"
The Transact-SQL Reference chapter is especially useful because it
contains lists of supported, partially supported, and unsupported T-SQL
reserved words.
The Windows Azure team released the Windows Azure Platform
Training Kit – August [2009] Update for downloading on August 17, 2009,
at http://bit.ly/3Nwdbn,
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa
milyID=413E88F8-5966-4A83-B30953B7B77EDF78&displaylang=en. The kit offers the following SQL
Azure Database–specific elements in .pptx, .docx, or .htm format:
 Presentations
 Introduction to SQL Azure
 Building Applications using SQL Azure
 Scaling Out with SQL Azure
 Demonstrations








Preparing your SQL Azure Account
Connecting to SQL Azure
Managing Logins and Security in SQL Azure
Creating Objects in SQL Azure
Migrating a Database Schema to SQL Azure
Moving Data Into and Out Of SQL Azure using SSIS
Building a Simple SQL Azure App
Scaling Out SQL Azure with Database Sharding
 Hands On Labs
 Migrating Applications to Windows Azure
 Introduction to SQL Azure
 Migrating Databases to SQL Azure
Demonstrations and Hands On Labs require a sample database, so
you must have a free trial or paid commercial SQL Azure account in which
to create the database.
type="note"
You can find the SQL Azure – Getting Started forum at
http://bit.ly/ARCwN,
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/enUS/ssdsgetstarted/threads/.
Obtaining and Redeeming an
Azure Invitation Token for an
SADB CTP
Prior to SADB’s commercial release as a paid service in November
2009, early adopters need an invitation to join the current CTP by
submitting a GUID token. If free accounts are still available when you read
this book, go to the Microsoft Connect sign-up page at
http://bit.ly/9W9Wd,
https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?S
iteID=547, complete the survey, and wait for an e-mail message from
SQL Azure Talk (ssdstlk@microsoft.com), which directs you to
visit https://sql.azure.com, where you sign in with a valid
Windows Live ID and enter your invitation code (token), such as
53E249D7-56AE-AD22-AF02-5AD53784A47D in the text box (see
Figure 12-1).
type="note"
The preceding invitation code isn’t valid.
If you previously completed the survey to receive a token for the free
SSDS or SDS trial, you won’t be able to complete the survey at this point
but you should have received an e-mail invitation previously. If not and the
free trial is still in effect, leave a message in the SQL Azure – Getting
Started forum.
Figure 12-1. The SQL Azure Portal’s Invitation Code page for
creating a free trial account.
[f1201.bmp]
type="note"
When this chapter was written, early SQL Azure adopters had requested
continuation of free trial accounts for developers but it wasn’t known if
Microsoft intended to do this. The portal page for creating a paid
commercial SQL Azure account is likely to be similar to Figure 12-1.
Clicking Submit with a free trial invitation token opens the Terms of
Use page (see Figure 12-2).
Figure 12-2. The SQL Azure Terms of Use page.
[f1202.bmp]
Review the Terms of Use and click I Accept, if you accept them, to
open the Create Server page. SQL Azure requires assigning a Service
Administrator account, equivalent to SQL Server’s sa account, with a
username and password (see Figure 12-3). Free trial accounts are created
only in the USA_Northwest (Quincy, Washington) data center; you can
create paid commercial accounts in any other data center, such as
USA_Southwest (San Antonio, Texas).
type="note"
On August 4, 2009, Microsoft announced that all Windows Azure
accounts will be migrated from the Quincy data center to other U.S. data
center(s) before starting commercial service in November 2009 due to a
disagreement with the state of Washington about the payment of sales
taxes on data center construction and hardware costs.
SQL Azure uses SQL Server authentication only and doesn’t support
Windows authentication.
Figure 12-3. The SQL Azure Create Server page for assigning
the Server Administrator Username and Password.
[f1203.bmp]
Click the Create Server button to open the My Projects page, which
contains a Manage link for the SDS-Only CTP Project trial project’s
assigned name or the name you selected for a paid commercial project (see
Figure 12-4).
Figure 12-4. The SQL Azure Portal’s My Projects management
page. [f1204.bmp]
Creating a User Database
On the My Projects page, click the Manage link to open the Server
Administration page, which enables you to add databases to or drop them
from the server. Click Create Database to open a dialog that lets you name
the user database (see Figure 12-5).
Figure 12-5. The SQL Azure Portal’s Server Administration
page for adding or dropping user databases.
[f1205.bmp]
type="note"
The Server Administration page connects to the selected server’s default
master database. SQL Azure assigns a DNS-compatible name to the
server. SQL Azure doesn’t permit database administrators or users to add
objects directly to master.
Click Create to close the dialog, add the user database to the server,
and enable the Drop Database button when you select a user database (see
Figure 12-6).
Figure 12-6. The SQL Azure Portal’s Server Administration
page after adding an empty Northwind user database.
[f1206.bmp]
Alternatively, you can create or drop a user database by opening the
master database in SSMS 2008 [Express] and executing a CREATE
DATABASE DatabaseName or DROP DATABASE DatabaseName
T-SQL command.
type="note"
The next section describes how to connect to databases with SSMS 2008
[Express]. You can’t connect to SQL Azure databases with SSMS 2005
[Express].
Clicking the upper Connection Strings button opens a message with
ADO.NET, ODBC, and OLE DB connection strings for the Master
database that you can copy to the Clipboard:
ADO.NET
Server=tcp:k8jv7gpmwb.ctp.database.windows.net;Database=master;
User ID=rogerj;Password=myPassword;Trusted_Connection=False;
ODBC
Driver={SQL
Server};Server=tcp:k8jv7gpmwb.ctp.database.windows.net;Database=master;
Uid=rogerj;Pwd=myPassword;
OLE DB
Provider=SQLNCLI10;Server=tcp:k8jv7gpmwb.ctp.database.windows.net;Database=mast
er;
Uid=rogerj;Pwd=myPassword;
type="note"
The tcp: prefix specifies that the connection will use SQL Server’s
native Tabular Data Stream (TDS) protocol over TCP port 1433. SQL
Azure connections are encrypted by default; the server will terminate the
connection if the client doesn’t accept encryption. Connection strings for
paid commercial databases won’t include the ctp. segment.
With a user database selected, click the lower Connection Strings
button to open a message that contains examples of ADO.NET, ODBC, and
OLE DB connection strings for the selected user database (see Figure 127):
Figure 12-7. Connection strings for ADO.NET, ODBC, and OLE
DB drivers for the Northwind database.
[f1207.bmp]
ADO.NET
Server=tcp:k8jv7gpmwb.ctp.database.windows.net;Database=Northwind;
User ID=rogerj;Password=myPassword;Trusted_Connection=False;
ODBC
Driver={SQL Server};Server=tcp:k8jv7gpmwb.ctp.database.windows.net;
Database=Northwind;Uid=rogerj;Pwd=myPassword;
OLE DB
Provider=SQLNCLI10;Server=tcp:k8jv7gpmwb.ctp.database.windows.net;
Database=Northwind;Uid=rogerj;Pwd=myPassword;
Click the ADO.NET entry’s Copy to Clipboard link to save the
connection string.
type="note"
The ability to migrate server connections from a local SQL Server 2008
[Express] instance to SADB in the cloud by simply changing the
connection string is a widely publicized SADB feature.
Connecting to SADB Master and
User Databases with SSMS 2008
[Express]
SSMS 2008 is the most convenient tool for executing single and
batched T-SQL commands to the master and user databases. Unfortunately,
the standard SSMS 2008 [Express] version’s Object Browser feature isn’t
compatible with the SADB August 2009 CTP; you’ll also encounter error
messages during the connection process.
type="note"
The team expects to provide support for additional SSMS features in the
commercial version scheduled for release in mid-November 2009.
SADB wasn’t compatible with the Server Explorer feature of Visual Studio
2008 or 2010 Beta 1 when this chapter was written.
You need SQL Server 2005 or 2008 [Express] to emulate SADB in
projects that use the Development Fabric. A standalone version of SSMS
2008 Express is available from http://bit.ly/PECbN,
https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Family
ID=08e52ac2-1d62-45f6-9a4a-4b76a8564a2b&displaylang=en.
SSMS 2005 [Express] doesn’t work with SADB.
To connect to the SADB server that you provisioned in the
preceding section with standard SSMS 2008 versions, launch SSMS 2008
[Express] and click Cancel in the Connect to Database dialog that opens on
startup. Choose Tools, Options to open the Options dialog with the
Environment, General option selected by default, change the Open New
Query Window in the At Startup list, and click OK to save the change.
type="note"
If you attempt to connect to SADB from SSMS startup, you receive the
“Invalid object name ‘sys.configurations’.” error message shown in Figure
12-8.
Figure 12-8. The error message generated by attempting to
connect to SADB on opening an unpatched SSMS version.
[f1208.bmp]
Click SSMS’s New Query toolbar button to open the Connect to
Database dialog; accept the default Database Engine Server Type; copy the
ADO.NET connection string sample to the Server Name text box, trim the
entry to the server name, including the tcp: prefix; and (optionally) mark
the Remember Password check box.
Select SQL Server Authentication in the Authentication list, and
type the server administrator credentials you created in the preceding
section in the Login and Password text boxes (see Figure 12-9).
Figure 12-9. Specifying SADB login parameters in the standard
Connect to Database dialog.
[f1209.bmp]
SADB doesn’t support the T-SQL USE command and, therefore,
requires you to specify the database to which to connect. So, click the
Options >> button to expand the dialog. Accept the <default> or type
master for the master database or the name of an existing user database in
the Connect to Database combo box, and mark the Encrypt Connection
check box (see Figure 12-10).
Figure 12-10. Specifying the SADB database for an encrypted
connection. [f1210.bmp]
type="note"
SADB connections are encrypted with Transport Level Security (TLS) by
default but marking[I prefer the en-uk term “tick”] the Encrypt Connection
check box will please your organization’s data security auditors.
Click Connect to open the connection and click OK to dismiss the
spurious “Unable to apply connection settings” message (see Figure 12-11).
Figure 12-11. Connecting to an unpatched SADB database
issues this error message, which you can safely disregard.
[f1211.bmp]
If the user database you specified in the Connect to Database dialog
doesn’t exist, the connection will silently default to the master database,
which is indicated by the presence of CloudNode.MasterDb in the
highlighted Available Databases toolbar list and in the status bar. To create
the user database, execute the CREATE DATABASE DatabaseName
command (see Figure 12-12).
Figure 12-12. The Available Databases list and status bar
identify the connection’s database name. [f1212.bmp]
type="note"
An active connection to a user database is indicated by
CloudNode.dbo.UserDb[…] replacing CloudNode.MasterDb in the
Available Databases list and status bar.
To conserve resource consumption, SADB automatically closes
connections after five minutes of inactivity. To reopen a closed connection
click the Connect or Change Connection buttons at the extreme left of the
SQL Editor toolbar.
Using the sqlcmd Utility with
SADB
The sqlcmd utility is an alternative to SSMS that lets you manage
database connections at the command prompt. The following instruction
with valid server administrator credentials typed or pasted at the Windows
command prompt opens a connection to the Northwind database running on
the SADB server created earlier in the chapter:
sqlcmd -S k8jv7gpmwb.ctp.database.windows.net -U rogerj@k8jv7gpmwb
-P Pas$w0rd -d Northwind
The following table describes common sqlcmd command-line
arguments:
Argument
-?
-S
-U
-P
-d
-i
-o
Description
Show syntax summary
Server (use complete DNS name)
Server administrator name in login@servername (name
only) format
Server administrator password
User database name (default is master)
Query input (T-SQL) file path\name
Query output file path\name
Figure 12-13 shows the result of executing sqlcmd -?.
Figure 12-13. The Windows command prompt displaying the
sqlcmd syntax summary. [f1213.bmp]
After connecting to SADB, executing T-SQL statements and batched
queries with sqlcmd is a simple process. At the sequentially numbered #>
prompt, type a valid T-SQL command, and press Enter. Type GO and press
Enter to execute the preceding command(s) and reset the prompt number to
1. Type quit or exit to close the session. Figure 12-14 shows sqlcmd’s
window after executing the SELECT name FROM sys.tables
command against the Northwind database you create with SSMS and a
modified version of the InstNwind.sql script in the next chapter.
Figure 12-14. Using sqlcmd to display a list of table names in a
sample Northwind database. [f1214.bmp]
Comparing SADB with SQL Server
2008 R2 Databases
SADB servers and databases are virtual objects abstracted from a
customized, multi-tenant version of clustered SQL Server instances and
don’t correspond to individual physical server instances. Therefore, you
administer databases, tables, indexes, tuning, query optimization, logins,
users, and roles but not physical storage, such as servers, files, and fixed
disk drives. SADB automatically handles data replication and loadbalancing for high availability, including transparent fail-over when a
server dies. Backup is handled by data replication; restore operations after
data loss or corruption are automatic.
SADB blocks statements and options that attempt to directly
manipulate physical resources, such as RESOURCE GOVERNOR, filegroup
references, and some physical server DDL statements. Attempts to set
server options, such as SET ANSI_NULLS ON, generate error messages.
CRL database objects, SQL Service Broker, SQL trace flags, SQL Server
Profiler and Database Tuning Advisor tools and utilities aren’t available.
Deprecated data types, such as text, ntext, and image aren’t
supported but you can substitute varchar(max), nvarchar(max),
and varbinary(max) for them, as you’ll see in the next chapter. SADB
currently doesn’t permit use of SQL Server 2008’s geography and
geometry spatial data types. If you need to encrypt data, you must do so
in the client application; SADB doesn’t support the column-level or rowlevel encryption introduced by SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008’s
Transparent Data Encryption (TDE). The “Transact-SQL Reference”
chapter of MSDN’s SQL Azure documentation
(http://bit.ly/15Ja0Q, http://msdn.microsoft.com/enus/library/ee336281.aspx) includes tables that list supported,
partially supported, and unsupported T-SQL statements.
Summary
SQL Azure Database is the basic element of SQL Azure. SADB
provides a highly scalable and available relational database as a public
cloud computing resource running together with the Windows Azure
Platform in Microsoft’s newly constructed data centers, except at Quincy,
Washington. The SADB Web Edition supports transactional-consistent
databases up to 1GB in size; the Business Edition is limited to 10GB or
less.
SADB grew out of early adopters’ dissatisfaction with technical
previews of SQL Server Data Services (SSDS), which offered a flexible,
highly scalable, schemaless Entity-Attribute-Value data model but was
missing the relational features that IT groups and developers expected from
a service carrying the SQL Server name. In March 2009, Microsoft
announced that SSDS would morph to a fully relational version called SQL
Data Services (SDS), which enable developers to leverage their data
architecture and Transact-SQL skills. SDS became SQL Azure Database in
July 2009 and the first SADB CTP became available to invitees on August
17, 2009.
The CTP version required requesting an invitation from the
Microsoft Connect site that resulted in a token, which was redeemable from
the SQL Azure portal for a single server with multiple databases at no
charge. The commercial version, which is expected to release in midNovember 2009 at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference in Los
Angeles, will require a credit card to cover a charge of US$9.99 per month
(Web Edition) or US$99.99 per month (Business Edition), plus US$0.10
per GB of data ingress and US$0.15 per GB of data egress.
SADB auto-assigns a unique DNS address to each server. SQL
Server Management Studio 2008 [Express] and the sqlcmd command-line
utility connect to SADB with the TCP protocol on port 1433 using SQL
Server’s traditional Tabular Data Stream format via encrypted
transmissions. Using TDS lets developers change from connections to local
SQL Server 2005 or 2008 [Express] instances for development to SADB
databases in the cloud simply by changing the connection string. Future
modifications to SSMS 2008 [Express] will result in SADB gaining fullfeatured management by SSMS.
Microsoft manages SADB’s physical infrastructure, such as server
instances, disk drives and files, as well as backup and restore operations, so
many T-SQL DDL commands aren’t supported. However, developers have
full control over databases, tables, indexes, tuning, query optimization,
logins, users, and roles. SADB doesn’t support deprecated and new SQL
Server 2008 spatial datatypes, nor does it offer data encryption.