In my previous post, I discussed how to backup SQL Azure databases to local disks using Azure management cmdlet’s. In this post, we will continue the discussion and see how we could backup the SQLAzure database to Azure blobs. Now before starting, let’s check the cmdlet’s are running fine.

Run the command:

Get-Command –PSSnapin AzureManagementCmdletsSnapIn

if you have any issues, please read: https://www.cerebrata.com/Docs/AzureManagementCmdlets/readme.pdf

Now, let’s see the command that does SQL Azure backup to Azure blobs:

Backup-Database -Name "database1" -DownloadLocation "C:temp" -Server "mydatabaseserver" -UserName "username" -Password "password" -SaveToBlobStorage -BlobContainerName "myblobcontainer" -AccountName "myaccount" -AccountKey "base64 encoded accountkey" -Verbose

Here,

-BlobContainerName is the name of the container in which the files will be stored (on Azure storage)

-Account Name is the name of the Azure storage account which can be found in the Azure management portal

-AccountKey is the key that is required to access the Azure storage account

since we have mentioned –Verbose , we will get description of what’s happening under the hood when the operation is being performed.

On successful completion, you will see something like:

I had not specified the container, so it created a container in the format: [database name]-backup-[time stamp]

Alternatively, if you wish to compress the backup text files and then send it to blobs, a sample command is:

C:PS>Backup-Database -Name "database1" -DownloadLocation "D:temp" -Server "mydatabaseserver" -UserName "username" -Password "password" -SaveToBlobStorage –CompressBlobs -AccountName "myaccount" -AccountKey "base64 encoded accountkey" –Verbose

Notice –CompressBlobs in the command

And that’s pretty much it. have fun exploring this powerful powershell CmdLet’s – there are almost 100 of them.

For now, the restore database through the Management CmdLet is not available – But basically the whole point is using Powershell CmdLet’s we will be able to schedule SQL Azure tasks! and that is definitely a good news for an IT pro, right?  

related posts:

1. http://parasdoshi.com/2011/06/19/automating-sql-azure-backup-to-on-premise-disks-using-a-sql-azure-management-cmdlet/

2. http://parasdoshi.com/2011/07/05/my-experiments-with-enzo-backup-for-sql-azure-beta-an-one-of-its-kind-tool-for-sql-azure-backups/