Microsoft Azure product team recently extended the database creation workflow in the preview Azure management portal to support two new scenarios namely create from sample and create from backup.
Microsoft also provided a sample database which is based on the lightweight version of the popular Adventure Works database. The database provides support for order processing for a fictitious bicycle manufacturer.
“Creating a database from this sample gives you a quick and easy way to try Azure SQL Database with real world schema and data,” said Sanjay Nagamangalam, Group Program Manager, Azure SQL Database, Microsoft. It is also possible to create a database from the most recent daily backup of any Basic, Standard, or Premium database.
In order to work with this functionality, you need to navigate to the preview portal and select + New > SQL Database. After that you need to choose between a blank database, sample or backup as the source.
The create from backup option enables you to create Azure SQL database from any available daily backup. Moreover, you can create the new database in any region.
If you delete and recreate a database with the same name the backup of the new database will automatically replace the backup of the deleted database.
In order to restore a copy of Azure SQL database to a specific point up to five minutes ago you should open the database in its database blade and restore from there.
In order to restore a deleted database to the point at which it was deleted, then you should use Browse SQL servers to locate its server, open the server blade and click on Deleted Databases.
It is possible to contextually open the database in Visual Studio 2013 with update 4 (or later) with a single click, when viewing a database in either the Azure management pr new preview portal.
You will be able to perform following activities when the database is opened in the SQL Server Object Explorer
- Browse and edit the schema
- Write and execute T-SQL queries
- View data in any of the tables
- Creation of an offline project to manage, build and publish schema changes alongside your application code
Sanjay demonstrates the creation of database from both sample, backup and contextually open a database in Visual Studio 2013 with Update 4 in the below video.
