Posted by Alin Irimie
on August 13, 2010
Microsoft just announced the release of the first version of SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) for MySQL.
Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) is a toolkit that dramatically cuts the effort, cost, and risk of migrating from MySQL to SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2. SSMA 2008 for MySQL also supports migrating to SQL Azure.
SSMA for MySQL lets you quickly convert MySQL database schemas to SQL Server schemas, upload the resulting schemas into SQL Server, and migrate data from MySQL to SQL Server.
SSMA for MySQL supports migration from MySQL 4.1 and higher to any edition of SQL Server.
The latest SQL Server Migration Assistant is available for free download and preview here. Continue reading…
Posted by Alin Irimie
on May 10, 2010
In case you missed it, Microsoft released SQL Azure FAQ, providing an architectural overview of SQL Azure Database, and describing how you can use SQL Azure to augment your existing on-premises data infrastructure or as your complete database solution. Some of the questions answered in the document:
- How do I connect to SQL Azure?
- I am unable to connect to SQL Azure. How can I troubleshoot this problem?
- Where can I find sample connection strings for SQL Azure?
- Are there any hands-on labs or demos available for moving data between on-premise SQL Server and SQL Azure?
- How do I configure SQL Azure Firewall settings?
- How can I grant my Web Role access to SQL Azure?
(more after the jump)
Continue reading…
Posted by Alin Irimie
on May 07, 2010
Microsoft Learning has a training clinic for Microsoft SQL Azure with lots of useful information. If you’re a newbie or even an experimented Windows Azure developer this is a required reading. This two-hour clinic explores the capabilities of Introduction to Microsoft SQL Azure and covers topics from understanding the SQL Azure Platform to how to achieve scale with SQL Azure. Users completing this collection should have a basic understanding of SQL Server and relational database systems.
Understanding the SQL Azure Platform
- Windows Azure Platform
- Extending the SQL Data Platform to the Cloud
- What SQL Azure Is
- What SQL Azure Is Not
- When to Use SQL Azure vs Azure Tables
- SQL Azure Provisioning Model
- Provisioning a SQL Azure Account and Connecting to SQL Azure
- SQL Azure Architecture
- Creating a SQL Azure Database
- High Availability and Recovery
Continue reading…
Posted by Alin Irimie
on March 19, 2010
I just stumbled upon the SQL Azure Labs website, a place where you can access incubations and early preview bits for products and enhancements to SQL Azure. The goal is to gather feedback from users. All technologies on this site are for testing and are not ready for production use. Some of these features might not even make it into production.
There’s nothing much there yet, however, you can expose a SQL Azure database as OData service, which is now live on the site.
Posted by Alin Irimie
on March 10, 2010
Ryan Dunn, the Technical Evangelist for Windows Azure, posted a neat trick on how to measure your database size in SQL Azure. Here is the exact queries you can run to do it:
select
sum(reserved_page_count) * 8.0 / 1024
from
sys.dm_db_partition_stats
GO
select
sys.objects.name, sum(reserved_page_count) * 8.0 / 1024
from
sys.dm_db_partition_stats, sys.objects
where
sys.dm_db_partition_stats.object_id = sys.objects.object_id
group by sys.objects.name
The first one will give you the size of your database in MB and the second one will do the same, but break it out for each object in your database.
Posted by Alin Irimie
on November 10, 2009
The long awaited build of SQL Server Management Studio with support for SQL Azure is available today for MSDN and TechNet subscribers and will be generally available for the rest of the world as of tomorrow. The download page can be found here. This support is included as part of the November CTP release of SQL Server 2008 R2. This release not only includes SQL Azure support from within SSMS but a wealth of other SQL Server 2008 specific features. Check out this blog entry for more.
Posted by Alin Irimie
on October 27, 2009
Today Amazon released its answer to SQL Azure, the hosted cloud database offered by Microsoft. The newest service form Amazon, the Amazon Relational Database Service, or Amazon RDS for short, now in beta, makes it easier for you to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. You get direct database access without worrying about infrastructure provisioning, software maintenance, or common database management tasks.
Using the RDS APIs or the command-line tools, you can access the full capabilities of a complete, self-contained MySQL 5.1 database instance in a matter of minutes. You can scale the processing power and storage space as needed with a single API call and you can initiate fully consistent database snapshots at any time.
Continue reading…
Posted by Alin Irimie
on October 15, 2009
Today, the SQL Azure October CTP 2 was released. This CTP represents the complete feature set that will be available in the SQL Azure at PDC.
The October CTP has been deployed to one of Microsoft’s go-live production clusters. This production cluster is significantly larger and more powerful than the machine cluster that is supporting the August CTP but is a completely separate machine cluster serviced by a dedicated developer portal (https://sql.azure.com). Accounts for all existing users of the current CTP (August CTP) have been automatically provisioned for access to the new October CTP and environment. Simply go to the developer portal (https://sql.azure.com) to activate your account and create servers on the new environment. Servers you create on this new environment will be reachable through a new address(<servername>.database.windows.net). Continue reading…
Posted by Alin Irimie
on September 09, 2009
SQL Azure Migration Wizard helps you migrate your local SQL Server 2005 / 2008 databases into SQL Azure. The wizard walks you through the selection of your SQL objects, creates SQL scripts suitable for SQL Azure, and allows you to edit / deploy to SQL Azure.
The SQL Azure Migration Wizard (SQLAzureMW) will let you identify a SQL Server 2005 / 2008 database that you want to migrate to SQL Azure or select an existing SQL file that has the commands you want to execute against SQL Azure.
If your source is a SQL Server database, SQLAzureMW will walk you through the different object types (i.e. Tables, Stored Procedures, Views, etc.) and let you decide which ones you want analyzed / scripted. You will be given two options: Continue reading…
Posted by Alin Irimie
on August 19, 2009
The Windows Azure Platform training kit was updated with new SQL Azure content in the August release of the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit. Many of the existing labs and presentations were also updated, in line with recent developments of the platform.
The kit now includes: Continue reading…
