3. Databases
The Databases tab is first in
the Server Administration portal, but the
Firewall Settings tab before it because even though you can create
databases, you can't connect to them without defining a firewall rule
and an IP address range. Now that you've defined your firewall rules,
let's create a database and connect to it.
The Databases tab makes it
very easy to create and manage SQL Azure databases. Click the Create
Database button on the Databases tab to bring up the dialog shown in Figure 6.
This dialog asks you to enter the name of the database, the database
edition (Web or Business), and the database's maximum size. Web
database editions are available in 1 GB and 5 GB; the Business edition
provides sizes ranging from 10 GB to 50 GB, in increments of 10.
NOTE
You're free to pick any
database size. But if you use more space than you select, you're
charged for the next biggest size. For example, if you initially select
a 20 GB database, and after a few months your data grows to 22GB, you
then begin to be charged for the 30 GB maximum size.
After you've entered the
database name, edition, and maximum size, click the Create button. Your
database is now be listed on the Databases tab, along with the
database's current size, type (or maximum size), and availability. (See
Figure 7.)
From the SQL
Azure Server Administration portal and the Databases tab, you can also
drop existing databases and test connectivity to databases. To test
connectivity, select a database from the list, and click the Test
Connectivity button. Doing so opens the Database Connectivity Test
dialog, which asks you to specify your username and password to connect
to the selected database. Enter the appropriate username and password,
and click Connect. If the connection is successful, the dialog lets you
know, as shown in figure 8.
At this point, you've
created a database and walked through how to create and manage your
databases. Let's move on to how to connect to your databases through
SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and how to create databases and
users via T-SQL.
Now that you've defined your firewall rules and settings, you can create and access SQL Azure databases. Let's do that now.
