Migrating Databases and Data to SQL Azure (part 9)

3.3. Importing the Data

The next step is to copy the data into the cloud—specifically, to your SQL Azure TechBio database. The syntax for copying into a database is very similar to the syntax for copying data out. You use the in keyword and specify the server name and credentials for your SQL Azure database, as shown in Figure 18.

Figure 18. Uniqueidentifier data type error during bcp import

After you type in the command, press Enter to execute the bcp utility. Only one row is copied over, and then an error is generated, stating that an unexpected end-of-file (EOF) was encountered. This error isn't specific to SQL Azure; the bcp utility has issues with columns of the uniqueidentifier data type. You can find posts and blogs all over the Internet about this problem.

The solution is to execute the following T-SQL against the Users table in your SQL Azure database:

alter table users
drop column rowguid

The cool thing is that you don't need to re-export the data. You can re-execute the bcp import command. Do that, as shown in Figure 19, and all 105 rows are imported. Then, use the same syntax to import the Docs and UserDocs data.

Figure 19. Successful bcp import

Don't forget to put the rowguid column back on the Users table. You can do this by using the same syntax as before:

ALTER TABLE Users
ADD rowguid uniqeidentifier

Next, let's make this a little simpler and put the export and import together, so you aren't running the statements one at a time.

3.4. Putting the Export and Import Together

You can put the export and import processes together into a single file to make them easier to use. To do so, open Notepad, and type in the following, replacing the italicized information with the appropriate information for your environment:

bcp Techbio.dbo.Users out c:\scott\user.dat -S Scott-PC -U sa -P Password -n -q
bcp Techbio.dbo.Docs out c:\scott\docs.dat -S Scott-PC -U sa -P Password -n -q
bcp Techbio.dbo.UserDocs out c:\scott\userdoc.dat -S Scott-PC -U sa -P Password -n -q

bcp Techbio.dbo.Users in c:\scott\user.dat -S servername.database.windows.net
-U SQLScott@ servername -P #ackThis -n -q
bcp Techbio.dbo.docs in c:\scott\docs.dat -S servername.database.windows.net
-U SQLScott@ servername -P #ackThis -n -q
bcp Techbio.dbo.userdocs in c:\scott\userdoc.dat -S servername.database.windows.net
-U SQLScott@ servername -P #ackThis -n -q
Save the file as AzureBCP.cmd, and navigate to its location. 
Double-click the file to execute it. A command window appears, showing the results of the bcp commands that export and import the data.