Today, I’m going to talk about one the PaaS services from Microsoft Azure, “Azure SQL”.

One of the benefits of using Azure SQL is that all of server management and maintenance tasks are processed in Azure so the users only need to focus on administration of databases. Allowing easier management and need not to worry about purchasing licenses as they’re already included.

 

Azure SQL Deployment Steps

Login to Azure Portal and select “SQL Server”.


 

Click on “Add”


 

Fill in the “Server Name”, “Administrator Login” etc and select the “location”

Once all settings are filled in, click on “Create”.


 

Deployment will start so wait a few minutes.


 

Once deployed it will be listed up like shown below. Try clicking on it.


 

If you click on it, further details about the server is displayed.

You can’t access the server just yet. We need to go to “All Settings”.


 

and choose “Firewall”.

Here, enter your IP address that you will be using to access from. If you don’t know, it’s displayed in “Client IP Address”

Both the start and ending IP address can be the same. Name it so you know that IP you just entered is yours.


 

Now go to “Properties”.

You can see the “Server Name” which is actually the address you will use later. Take note of this address.

Steps inside the Azure Portal is complete.


 

Next we’ll access the server.

This can be done from the ordinary SQL Management Studio.
**You need to have your SQL Management Studio version to be above 2016 CTP3. As of 2016/4/1, SQL Management Studio 2016 CU2 is the latest version.

First, startup the SQL Management Studio and use the address you’ve taken note of and enter it in the “Server name”.

“Authentication” should be set to “SQL Server Authentication”

The “Login” and “Password” is what you’ve specified in the Azure Portal. Once filled, click on “Connect”.


 

If a window like below is displayed, you have some mistake in the firewall setup with Azure Portal. Check again.


 

When connected successfully, your management studio should be like below.

In my next article, I will show you how to deploy database inside the Azure SQL.