SQL Azure - Manage Database Using Azure Portal

Introduction:

In this article we are going to see how to manage the newly created SQL Azure database using the Azure management portal.

Overview:

Managing database servers and the database itself using SQL Azure is something new which we can see in the latest version provided using Silverlight. Once we create a new Storage account and a new server with new database  we need to manage that database to create tables, stored procedures etc. which are made very easily with the latest version of Azure using the manage database option. Let's see how to use this manage option to develop a fully functioning database.

Steps:

Log in to the Azure portal using the link below. You will see the screen look similar to below.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/



Login to the portal using your Microsoft Windows Live credentials with Azure credentials to the management portal and you will see the screen as shown in the screen below.



Now we can see the Database Menu at the bottom left; click on that to go to the Database Subscription window as shown in the screen below:


Clicking on the subscription name will show the complete details of the server created and the new database created as shown in the screen below:



Now we have a database created with a maximum size of 1GB and are ready to use it for the application based on the requirement. To manage the database click on Manage at the top menu tool bar as shown in the screen below.



Clicking on the Manage button will open a new browser as shown in the screen below:


Now accept the agreement and click on the OK button to navigate to the new window as shown in the screen below:


Enter the valid credentials and click on connect button. We will see an error message at the bottom as shown in the screen below:



Click on the Error button; we will see a nice animation then it will open the error message as shown in the screen below:




From the error message we can see that the IP address is not added to the firewall. Since this managing server is maintained in a different IP we need to add this as well to the Firewall rule. To add the IP to the firewall rule do the following steps. Go to the Azure portal and add the IP as shown below.

Now we can see the Firewall Rules tab with the added IP address as shown in the screen below:



Click on that button will drop down the list of IP address added as shown in the screen below. Here we need to click on the ADD button to add the new IP address to the firewall.



After adding the IP address we can see the IP added to the list as shown in the screen below:



Now go back to the Manage portal and give the credentials once again and click on the connect button as shown in the screen below:



After successful authentication we will be redirected to a new portal as shown in the below screen:



We can use this portal to do some updates like adding a new table, stored procedure, Views etc along with adding data to the tables which we will see in future articles.

Conclusion:

So in this article we have seen on how to connect to the new Manage server to manage the database newly created using SQL Azure.