Description
In general, working with a database in SQL Azure is the same as working against an on-premises database. There are some additional considerations which are covered by this lab.
Overview
SQL Azure Database is SQL Server technology delivered as a service on Windows Azure. Working with SQL Azure should be a familiar experience for most developers because, for the most part, it supports the same tooling and development practices currently used for on-premises SQL Server applications.
The long term goal for SQL Server and SQL Azure is for symmetry and parity in both features and capabilities, however there are currently differences in architecture and implementation that need to be addressed when developing solutions.
This hands-on lab will walk through a series of tips and tricks that are important for working with SQL Azure, such as managing connections and querying the metrics views.
Objectives
In this hands-on lab, you will learn about:
- Manipulating the SQL Azure firewall via APIs using Cmdlets
- Managing connections and logging session IDs
- Supportability
Prerequisites
The following is required to complete this hands-on lab:
Setup
In order to execute the exercises in this hands-on lab you need to set up your environment.
- Open a Windows Explorer window and browse to the lab’s Source folder.
- Double-click the Setup.cmd file in this folder to launch the setup process that will configure your environment and install the Visual Studio code snippets for this lab.
- If the User Account Control dialog is shown, confirm the action to proceed.
- When prompted to create a certificate press Y to generate a new certificate or N if you have a certificate installed in your local machine and have it uploaded as a management certificate in the management portal.
- If you choose to generate a new certificate, the script will pause to let you upload the generated certificate to the management portal. Upload the certificate to the management portal in the management certificates section and take note of its thumbprint.
Make sure you have checked all the dependencies for this lab before running the setup.
Using the Code Snippets
Throughout the lab document, you will be instructed to insert code blocks. For your convenience, most of that code is provided as Visual Studio Code Snippets, which you can use from within Visual Studio 2010 to avoid having to add it manually.
If you are not familiar with the Visual Studio Code Snippets, and want to learn how to use them, you can refer to the Setup.docx document in the Assets folder of the training kit, which contains a section describing how to use them.
Exercises
This hands-on lab includes the following exercises:
- Manipulating the SQL Azure firewall via Cmdlets
- Managing Connections – Logging Session IDs
- Supportability – Usage Metrics
Estimated time to complete this lab: 60 minutes.
When you first start Visual Studio, you must select one of the predefined settings collections. Every predefined collection is designed to match a particular development style and determines window layouts, editor behavior, IntelliSense code snippets, and dialog box options. The procedures in this lab describe the actions necessary to accomplish a given task in Visual Studio when using the General Development Settings collection. If you choose a different settings collection for your development environment, there may be differences in these procedures that you need to take into account.
