Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Bible

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Part V: Enterprise Data Management

Managing Windows Azure SQL Database

One of the great benefi ts of SQL Database, on top of its high availability, scalability, and

familiar development model, is that SQL Database provides the great, same familiar devel-

opment model that you know and love with SQL Server. This section looks at a couple of

tools that help with the management of SQL Database.

SQL Server Management Studio

The fi rst tool is the familiar SQL Server Management Studio. SQL Server Management Studio

from SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2, and SQL Server 2012 can be used to access, con-

fi gure, manage, and administer your SQL Database instances.

The key to using SQL Server Management Studio is supplying the proper login and server

information. The server name is in the following format:

server.database.windows.net

The server name is a fully qualifi ed name that you use every time you connect to SQL

Database, including connection strings. SQL Database supports only SQL Authentication, so

your username is in the following format:

username@server

When logged in, SQL Server Management Studio provides the same great tool for working

with your SQL Database environment that you are used to when working with SQL Server,

as shown in Figure 31-1. In the Object Explorer windows, several of the nodes you typically

use when working with SQL Server are not present when working with SQL Database, such

as the Server Objects node and the Replication Node.

These nodes are not included in the Object Explorer because the specifi c functionality just

isn’t needed or is soon to be coming. For example, Replication will probably not be included

simply because of the functionality SQL Database provides, such as how it provides high

availability with multiple redundant copies and using sync services to keep those copies in

sync. Plus, SQL Data Sync provides equivalent functionality without the headache of set-

ting up and confi guring Replication.

The key here is that after you connect to SQL Database via SQL Server Management Studio

(SSMS), you have all the capabilities to manage and administer your SQL Database environ-

ment using a familiar tool.

One of the things that you also notice as you work with your Azure databases and other

objects via SQL Server Management Studio is that the nice GUI you are used to isn’t there

(yet). For example, after you connect to an Azure database, expand the Databases node,

and then right-click the Tables node and select New Table. Instead of the nice interface to

design the table, a query window opens with the code template to create a new table. The

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