Getting a SQL Server instance
Until now we have always fed our apps with sample data. Let’s close this gap once and for all and provide ourselves with a SQL Server instance. As we have already mentioned, there are two major routes we can take:
- Install a local SQL Server instance (Express or Developer edition) on our development machine
- Set up a SQL database (and/or server) on Azure using one of the several options available on that platform
The former option embodies the classic, cloudless approach that software and web developers have been using since the dawn of time: a local instance is easy to pull off and will provide everything we’re going to need in development and production environments... as long as we don’t care about data redundancy, heavy infrastructure load and possible performance impacts (in the case of high-traffic websites), scaling, and other bottlenecks due to the fact that our server is a single physical entity.
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