SQL Azure – MSSQLTREK

How to connect to Azure VM SQL Server from SSMS?

In one of my previous posts, I’ve shown how to connect to Azure SQL DB(DaaS) from your local SSMS. In this post, let’s see how you can connect to SQL Server Instance which is running inside your Azure Virtual machine.

I’ve created a Azure VM(sreetestvm.cloudapp.net) with SQL Server 2014. I RDP’d onto the server and see below for how it looks.

But at this point I wasn’t able to connect to this SQL Server Instance remotely from my local SSMS on my laptop. So, what should we do to be able to connect to this instance?

1. Create an End Point from your VM dashboard to allow TCP port 1433.

2. Enable Mixed mode authentication on your SQL Server Instance and make sure TCP/IP protocol is enabled from SQL Server Config manager.

3. Create a firewall rule(Inbound) to allow port 1433 on your VM.

I’ve created a SQL login named “sreeremote” on this instance and voilaaa…now am able to connect to this Instance remotely from my SSMS 🙂

Hope this helps…

Azure SQL DB using SSMS – Things you should know.

Hey folks…In this post let’s see few things which you should be aware of, to avoid any surprises when connecting to your Microsoft Azure SQL DB from your SSMS.

First thing you might notice is there are no msdb,model and tempdb databases under system databases category, No Agent and pretty much nothing what you would see on your On-Premise SQL Server.

Now, let’s try opening a new query and see how database context works with Azure SQL DB. As you can see I got connected to master database which is my default database.

Nothing strange right? Let’s see what happens when I try to change my database context.

Ahaaaa….so, What if I change my database context from GUI?

Am able to change the database context for the first time. Well, but you can’t switch it back from GUI. It will be greyed out(See below).

So…Basically you have to establish a new connection to desired database as needed. In other words, you are directly connecting to your Database(literally). After all…this is Azure SQL DB, not Azure SQL Server 😀

Getting started with Microsoft Azure – Creating Azure SQL Database(DaaS)

In this blog post, Let’s see how to create a Microsoft Azure SQL database and how to connect to it from your SSMS client tool remotely.

Pre-Req: you need to have an Azure subscription. You can sign up for free (I guess, you will get 30 days for trail).

Once you login to your Azure management portal, it looks similar to this…

As you can see I’ve one Virtual machine and a storage account and “Zero” SQL Databases at this point. So, do you need a virtual machine or a storage account to create Azure SQL DB? The answer is “No”. I created them for exploring Azure IaaS(Infrastructure as a Service). Anyways…let’s start creating Azure SQL DB.

Step1: select SQL Databases and select “create a SQL Database”

Step 2: Give your database a name and choose your tier and DTUs (Data throughput Unit). I will explain what they are in another short blog post. Now…focus on the server in the below screenshot. Remember, I already have a VM but it’s not listed here and I’ve selected “create new SQL database server”. If you are wondering why, here am trying to create a Azure SQL Database as DaaS(Database as a Service), In which I’ve no control over the underlying server and hardware. All I get is to provide DTUs and a location to pick, I can’t use Virtual machines which I’ve created under IaaS for this service.

Step 3: Provide a SQL Server authenticated admin account to connect to this database(Think this as “sa” account on your traditional SQL Server Instance) and pick the server location where you want the server to be created.

Click on the “Check” button and you should have your server and SQL database up and running in matter of few seconds.

You can see I’ve got a new SQL Server database and when I go to servers tab, see the new server as well which got created.

So, how would you connect to this SQL Server from your SSMS?

You should go to servers tab and click on your server and click on dashboard. On the bottom right you will see an URL. That’s your server name which you should be using to connect from SSMS without https://.

Let’s give it a shot and see how it goes from my SSMS.

Oops! The fix? Simple, I have to go to azure management portal and select the server and go to configure and create a rule to allow my IP address where I’m trying to connect from using SSMS as shown below and click save.

Once I did that, I was able to successfully connect to my Azure SQL DB 🙂

I hope this will help setting up your first Azure SQL DB as DaaS. In an upcoming post, I will show few “GOTCHAS and limitations” you should be aware of while connecting to your Azure SQL DB from your SSMS.