Migrating a database to a SQL Database

The SQL Database supports many but not all the features of Microsoft SQL Server. For example, all SQL Database tables must have a clustered index, as the SQL Database does not support heap tables. Consequently, although it is not difficult to migrate a Microsoft SQL Server database to the SQL Database, some attention must be paid when doing so. This involves identifying the features that are not supported and modifying the Transact SQL script so that it can run correctly in Azure SQL Database.

The SQL Database Migration Wizard (http://sqlazuremw.codeplex.com/) is a CodePlex project that can be used to analyze a Microsoft SQL Server database to identify the features not supported in the SQL Database. It generates a Transact SQL script that can recreate the database and modifies to a valid form any statement not supported by Azure. The SQL Database Migration Wizard can then migrate the database by applying the script to a SQL Database and using bcp, a...