Question: Is there a “per transaction” cost for Windows Azue SQL Database (SQL Azure)?
Short Answer: No
I recently answered the question on MSDN forum where the question was about Transactions and the associated cost in SQL Azure. As of now, There is no “per transaction” cost associated with SQL Azure. There are two parameters that affect your SQL Azure Bill: 1) Database Size 2) Outbound Data Transfer and an example of an outbound transfer would be data access by an application hosted outside of your Azure DB’s data-center.
If you want to read more about SQL Azure pricing, here’s the official resource:
[UPDATE 9/12/2012: The URL’s that point to the service does not seem to work. The service may be out of “lab phase” and hopefully we would see this integrated in Portal or as an Independent service.]
Microsoft recently announced a tool (which is in CTP) called “Data Transfer” on SQL Azure Labs. It let’s you transfer CSV and excel data to SQL Azure or Windows Azure blob. I think this service would make our task easier than before. Earlier, We had the option to use SQL server integration services (SSIS) or BCP to transfer excel files or CSV files to SQL Azure. It was straightforward too but what if we had the tool in which you just point it to your excel/csv file and it would do try to do the rest. wouldn’t that be easier? Yes, so Data Transfer aims to achieve exactly that. To test drive Data Transfer tool go to https://web.datatransfer.azure.com/
In this blog post, I will show you how to upload an excel file to SQL Azure via this tool:
2. In my case, since I wish to transfer an excel file to SQL Azure, I am going to go with first option i.e. Microsoft SQL Azure
3. In the next step, provide the credentials of a SQL Azure DB (that exists already)
You have the option of saving a connection. And the drop down that you see in the above image will let you see all your saved connection.
4. In the next step, point to your file and select appropriate options via the Advanced options which has the File Encoding, Column Delimiter, Row delimiter and Text Qualifier options. So this are useful if you had a flat file with {tab} instead of {,} to separate column values. In my case, I am going to leave the advanced options to their default values. Point to the excel file and since my first row has column names – I am going to check the box that says “column names in the first data row” and then click on analyze.
5. if you had not checked the “Edit table defaults” box, then Done! you can view the status of the process from the My Data tab. It’s this easy.
If you checked the Edit table defaults, the next page would allow you to edit the data-type. The power of this tool resides in the fact that it guesses the data-type and assigns it to the data that we had specified. And if you want to over-ride the data-type chosen by the tool, you can do so here at this page:
BTW: I find this amazing!
6. Click on save and the data is ready to be uploaded. it’s that simple. And after the upload, you can view the details here on the “my data” page:
7. You can log into the SQL Azure manage portal and browse the tables. And after upload, the link to “manage” these tables will also be available in the “my data” page.
Conclusion:
As you imagine, the process is simple and “Data Transfer” tool makes it easier to upload CSV/Excel file to SQL Azure. And it also let’s you upload a file to Azure blob storage account. Give it a spin! URL: https://web.datatransfer.azure.com/
Aim of “Getting started with SQL Azure” series is to offer you a set of brief articles that could act as a Launchpad for your to-be wonderful journey of exploring Microsoft’s cloud based database solution i.e. SQL Azure.
In part 9, I have discussed about developing SQL Azure applications with following subtopics:
– Partially Supported and not supported TSQL statements
– SQL Server features not supported by SQL Azure
– Tools that have support to connect to SQL Azure:
– How can clients or Applications connect to SQL Azure?
Aim of “Getting started with SQL Azure” series is to offer you a set of brief articles that could act as a Launchpad for your to-be wonderful journey of exploring Microsoft’s cloud based database solution i.e. SQL Azure.
In part 8, I have discussed following administrative tasks:
1. Managing firewall rules
2. Managing SQL Azure servers, databases and Logins
Aim of “Getting started with SQL Azure” series is to offer you a set of brief articles that could act as a Launchpad for your to-be wonderful journey of exploring Microsoft’s cloud based database solution i.e. SQL Azure.
In part 7, I have discussed following administrative tasks:
Aim of “Getting started with SQL Azure” series is to offer you a set of brief articles that could act as a Launchpad for your to-be wonderful journey of exploring Microsoft’s cloud based database solution i.e. SQL Azure.
In part 6, I have discussed the SQL Azure security model:
In this blog post, we will see how to mange the SQL Azure login and learn how to create users with limited access in SQL Azure.
Now, To create a user, we need to have a login. And we create a login by logging into Master database with server-level principal login or user with loginmanager role.
So now i log into Master database of one of my SQL Azure server with server level principal login. And I run the following query to create a login named ‘parasdoshicom’:
create login parasdoshicom with password=’Passw0rd’
go
Quick note: choose a strong password – otherwise you may get an error. Strong passwords are those that has 8 character long with combination of symbols, numbers and letters. So i have ‘zero – 0’ in my password.
Now, we want to create a user in a user-database that has limited access. To do so, first login to that database. In my case, I want to create an user in the ‘adventureworksltaz2008r2’ and give him just the db_datareader role. let’s see how we do that.
So first I login to ‘adventureworksltaz2008r2’ with server-level principal login. And then:
1. run the command to create a user (let’s name it parasdoshicom which is same as the login name in this case) from the login parasdoshicom
create user parasdoshicom from login parasdoshicom
go
2. Assign the db_datareader role to user ‘parasdoshicom’
Now to test what we have just done. I am going to login to the “adventureworksltaz2008r2” database with parasdoshicom user credentials.
1. And I am going to run a select query <- This should work
2. And I am going to run a delete query <- This should not work
Let’s see:
1. select query with new login “parasdoshicom”
As expected, it runs!
2. Now let’s try running a delete command:
And it did not work. Notice that permission was denied. And that is what we intended, right?
So we were successful at creating a user “parasdoshicom” that can only read data from the “adventureworksltaz2008r2” database. And thus we have limited the access for the user in SQL Azure.
Aim of “Getting started with SQL Azure” series is to offer you a set of brief articles that could act as a Launchpad for your to-be wonderful journey of exploring Microsoft’s cloud based database solution i.e. SQL Azure.
In part 5, I have discussed the SQL Azure security model:
Aim of “Getting started with SQL Azure” series is to offer you a set of brief articles that could act as a Launchpad for your to-be wonderful journey of exploring Microsoft’s cloud based database solution i.e. SQL Azure.
In this blog post, I have discussed the SQL Azure architecture. Link:
