I decided to ask for a test account in the preview phase of Azure sql services, and today I’m trying to connect to it.
The signup process is quite easy and simple; once logged, I reach the web administration console for my databases.
I created my first db, 1gb maximum size. Now I want to connect to it using SSMS (Sql Server Management Studio) from my laptop. In the console there is a useful link to ready made “connection strings”, I use them to fill the SSMS connection dialog – but hey! I cannot connect…
After some clicking around I notice that I can setup the “firewall rules” in order to gain access from my IP. Let’s try.
The connection error actually states that I cannot connect from 78.14.234.1, so I fill the form to setup a “grant access” rule, as in the screenshot below:
Now I can connect successfully! And I can launch a New Query against my db, and run some (useless, I know) statements like:
The statements are quite silly, just to prove that I can do DDL.
Now I see that I cannot use the SSMS native “Object Explorer”, and looks like it’s impossible.
Looks like there are some alternative tool in this field, with some limitation (it’s a brave new world…); for example http://hanssens.org/tools/sqlazuremanager/ – Sql Azure Manager; is a tool developed to connect to Azure. It’s a ClickOnce setup, around 3.76 Mb in size. Once downloaded and installed, it prompts for your database connection parameter and you’re in.
There is also a web-based tool, Omega.MSSQL, at https://onlinedemo.cerebrata.com/SQLAzureClient/default.aspx. I cannot connect through this, but I found good opinions on it, so maybe it’s a problem on my side.
Another tool: “Gem Query Tool for Sql Azure”, here: http://microguru.com/gem/ – it’s very simple and lacks a lot of features… but again, I think that all these tools are too young to tell.
So far so good. I’ll keep you informed on this subject as I understand better. Bye!
