Windows Azure - SQL Azure Management Portal Introduction

From the previous articles we have seen:

• Creating database using Management Portal web application
• Creating table through code
• Using Management Studio desktop application

In this article we are going to discuss how to connect and create databases using the online Management Portal application.

Advantage

One of the advantages of using it would be an extra tool that will be available on machines without SQL Server Management Studio installed.

SQL Azure Management Portal

For invoking the tool there are 2 ways.

Sign in to your management portal and click on the Manage button from the database view.



Or

Paste the url of your database in a browser address box. You can get the fully qualified url from the database server list as shown below.



In the above case the url would be http://abcd.database.windows.net

SQL Azure Management Portal Application

This is another silverlight application. The application will prompt for the username and password. You need to enter your SQL Server username and password.



Enter your username and password and click the Log on button. (The database name is optional and we can choose later)

The Main Window

After login, you will be getting the following screen.



Creating new Database

We can create a new database using the Create button from the main window.



On clicking the button, within a short time you will be prompted with the following screen. You can enter the database details in it.



Use the Submit button and you will be ready with the database as shown below.


 
Summary

In this article we have seen how to connect and create database using the SQL Azure Management Portal. This tool provides an alternative way to the SQL Server Management Studio desktop application.