Create And Setup A SQL Database Using Azure Cloud

Introduction

This article helps you to know how to create a SQL database, using Azure portal management and setup the SQL Server in Microsoft Azure Cloud environment.

Here, the article is designed for beginners, where each step of process is clearly explained, so they can go through these documents and this will guide them to set up the Server and a database.

What is Azure Portal?

Azure portal is the online Web portal, designed by Microsoft, where this is used to maintain all Azure related stuff in the Cloud.

Portal has a very simple and a good user experience, where each part is self-explanatory or if you have any doubts about any of the portion of the controls, the [i] “i” symbol will provide you with the information about that particular portion of the control or options.

How to go to Azure Portal?

It’s pretty simple. You can login to Azure portal Website URL. Provide Microsoft Email credentials and login to the account in which the Cloud access is provided.

Either you can create your own Cloud account or you can get the access of the account which is already maintained by someone else like friends or your organization or institution.

Microsoft Azure also provides the free Cloud setup for a 30 day trial period which is worth approximately $200, and can also be used for learning purposes about the Cloud.

Sign in to Azure portal, using your Microsoft credentials.



Azure DashBoard

You will be able to see the Azure Dashboard, if you are subscribed with any Azure account or any access provided to your account from other subscriptions.

Here, you can find various options like Web apps and others. You can also see the “SQL Database”, which is used to create and maintain SQL databases.



SQL Database

Click “SQL Database”. You can view all the existing database in the right side. If you don’t have any existing database, it will be empty.



Add a SQL Database

You can use the “ADD” option, available in SQL database tab to create a new SQL database. This will display the options and settings for creating a new database and by providing various information, SQL database can be created in few minutes.



Database Information

To create a database, the following information is important and is as follows:

• Database Name
• Subscription
• Resource Group
• Select Source
• Server
• Pricing Tier
• Collation
  
  
  

Database Name

This requires a valid database name and this name can be a meaningful name, which is easy to maintain by the admin. It is a valid name like special character or spaces or any other and will be notified with “!” red color with proper validation error message, which can be modified accordingly.

Subscription

This is the type of subscription, which is based on your requirement and usage. Select any option. Consider Charges option of the subscritption.

Resource Group

The resource group is the one which maintains various sets of resources in a single group, say for example, when you have a different environment, it can have a different resource group for QA, Staging and production, where each group will have its own webapp and SQL in the group, which is helpful for maintainability.

Select Source

This has three types of database sources, as follows:

• Blank Database
• Sample
• Backup

The database type can be defined here, that you are planning to create accordingly.

Server

The Server is also same like physical Server, where each Server can be maintained in any part of world and the Application can be maintained in a Server, where SQL can be maintained in the other Server, so you can make use of any existing Server or even create a new Server for this database, which also impacts on the performance to have multiple databases in a single Server.

Pricing Tier

This is purely for billing purposes, where the size of the database and the data transaction depends on the type of tier, we choose. There are multiple tiers available, based on the usage and the transaction limit, we have chosen the tier as a standard or premium tier.

Collation

It is the set of  rules, which are assigned for the database to sort the data and compare the data in the database. Once the collation is defined during creation of a database it cannot be modified after the database creation.



Database Setup

Provide the valid information for the new database.



Creating a server

We can either create a new Server for the SQL database that's been created or can assign it to any one of the existing Servers, if available.



Firewall Settings

Azure has its own security constraints, where the SQL database cannot be accessed directly from any environment because the Server has its own firewall, which will restrict the usage of the database from any IP address.



Here, is the option to set the access option for accessing the database, where you can assign only the IP address of the machine, which is going to access the database or you can assign open access by providing an open port to all the IP addresses.

Start IP: 0.0.0.0
End IP: 255.255.255.255



Save the changes and now your database is ready.

The database also needs data replication as the back recovery plan, which is also achievable in Azure as simple steps and that will be shown step by step in upcoming articles with the other details.

Hope, you have understood. Try creating a free account and create a database and share your experience.