Manage SQL Azure Databases with the Web Interface 'Houston'

Microsoft SQL Azure Enterprise Application Development

Build enterprise-ready applications and projects with SQL Azure

• Develop large scale enterprise applications using Microsoft SQL Azure
• Understand how to use the various third party programs such as DB Artisan, RedGate, ToadSoft etc developed for SQL Azure
• Master the exhaustive Data migration and Data Synchronization aspects of SQL Azure.
• Includes SQL Azure projects in incubation and more recent developments including all 2010 updates

Appendix

In order to use this program and follow the article you should have an account on the Windows Azure Platform on which preferably an SQL Azure server has been provisioned. This would also imply that you have a Windows Live ID to access the portal.

As mentioned, in this article we look at some of the features of this web based tool and carry out a few tasks.

Click the Launch Houston button in the Project Houston CTP1 page shown here on the SQLAzureLabs portal page.

This brings up a world map displaying the current Windows Azure Data Centers available and you have to choose the data center on which you have an account. For the present article we will use the Southeast Asia data center and sometimes the North Central US data center.

Click on Southeast Asia location. The Silverlight application gets launched from the URL: https://manage-sgp.cloudapp.net/ displaying the license information that you need to agree to before going forward.

When you click OK, the Login in page is displayed as shown.

You need to enter the server information at the Southeast Asia data center as shown. Click Connect.

The connection gets established to the above SQL Azure server as shown in the next image.

This is much better looking than the somewhat ‘drab’ looking SSMS interface (albeit fully mature)shown here for comparison.

Changing the database

If you need to work with a different database, click on Connect DB at the top left of 'Houston' user interface, as shown in the next image.

The conneciton interface comes up again where you indicate the name of database as shown.

Here the database has been changed to master. Click Connect now connects you to the master database as shown.