SQL Azure - What's new in SQL Azure Q2 2011 Service Update - Part II

Introduction:

In this article we are going to see some of the new enhancement from the SQL Azure Q2 2011 release. In our earlier article we have seen on the replacement of the Database Manage Tool to the new SQL Azure Management Portal with rich user interface and enhanced options for the developers and the administrators as well.

Overview:

The previous article provides the overview of the new SQL Azure Management Portal with the different options to manage the database from the administrator level and also from the developer level. In this article we will see how exactly we can use the Manage Portal interface to administer the database. In our next article we will see for the developers on how to use the portal.

From an Administrator perspective we can see that similar to the Windows Azure Management Portal, the Microsoft Azure team has provided the Tabbed Menu to switch over from the Database Administration Mode to the Developer Mode(Handling Schema and Data).

Let us see the step by step process on how to use the SQL Azure Administration portal to Create, Deploy, Extract and Drop database.

Steps:

Login to the Windows Azure Management Portal using the below link(Need to have valid subscription)

www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/



We need to provide our login credentials by clicking on the Sign in to management portal as highlighted in the above screen, after successful login we will be redirected to a nice interface as shown in the screen below.



Now click on the Database tab in the left side menu of the Management portal and we can see a nice interface as shown in the screen below.



Now we can see a nice interface with a Ribbon Menu at the top with different options to manage the database server and the database. Now click on the Manage Button of the Server Configuration tab as highlighted in the screen below.



Clicking on Manage Database server button will launch a new SQL Azure Management Portal. We need to provide the Administrator credentials(Which we have given while creating a server) to get authenticated and login to the server. The SQL Azure Management Portal will look as shown in the screen below.



After successful authentication, we can see the SQL Azure Management Portal with the different options(Administrators & Developers) similar to the Windows Azure Management Portal tabs as shown in the screen below.



We can see there are 3 set of workspaces available (Overview, Database Life Cycle, Database Schema and Data) with the Q2 2011 release, in future Microsoft has planned to put on more workspaces to provide much user accessibility to manage tasks with SQL Azure.

Note: In order to get the Database Life Cycle tab we should not provide the Database Name in the Logon Screen.

Now let us see the different tasks available for administrating the database one by one.

Create Database: This option is straight forward used to create a database. Click on the Create Ribbon button as shown in the screen below.



We can see a user input screen requesting for the Database Name and the Edition to be selected based on the requirement as shown in the screen below.



Once provided the valid database name and edition click on Submit to complete creating the database. On successful database creation we can see that the portal redirects to the Developer workspace showing the details of the database and options to do the development tasks as shown in the screen below.



Now we are done with the Creation of a Database, Let us see the option of dropping the database from the Management Portal. Now go back to the Database Life Cycle by clicking on the left menu tab as shown in the screen below.



Now click on the Drop Database ribbon button to delete the database from the server as shown in the screen below.



We can see a user request, requesting a confirmation of the action to proceed further and delete the database from the server as shown in the screen below.



Now to confirm deleting the database click on OK button. we can see the deletion action gets started and in progress as shown in the screen below.



Once the action gets completed(Delete Database) we can see the database removed from the list as shown in the screen below.



We can see the details of the deleted database by clicking on the Details link as shown in the screen below.



In Our Next article we will see the Import and Export options used with the database administrator tasks.

Conclusion:

So in this article we have seen the enhanced options with the SQL Azure Management Portal specific to database administrators like Creating and Dropping a database. In our next article we will see the other options of Import and Export the Data Tier application objects.