Why is Query designer still disabled in SQL Management Studio for Azure DB's?

Lindell Jorgen 1 Reputation point
2021-10-26T15:35:57.187+00:00

Installed latest SSMS today.

Since a number of versions the query designer is disabled in SSMS for azure database connections, why is this?

It obviously can work, as it is shown when creating a view in such a database, so why not enable it within a query window?

It is really helpful to have when setting up complex joins for example.

/Jörgen

SQL Server
SQL Server
A family of Microsoft relational database management and analysis systems for e-commerce, line-of-business, and data warehousing solutions.
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  1. Seeya Xi-MSFT 16,436 Reputation points
    2021-10-27T03:08:05.877+00:00

    Hi @Lindell Jorgen ,

    Welcome Microsoft Q&A!
    Not all SSMS functionality from on-premise SQL Server is supported when connected to Azure SQL database. The Query designer is disabled because it's not supported for azure sql database. The general recommendation for managing your Windows Azure SQL Databases is to use the web portal.
    Please see this thread, there are some discussions in this thread.

    Best regards,
    Seeya

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  2. Erland Sommarskog 100.9K Reputation points MVP
    2021-10-27T21:38:06.517+00:00

    I did some tracing of what commands that the Query Designer submits to SQL Server, and I found this batch: 

    DECLARE @edition sysname;
SET @edition = cast(SERVERPROPERTY(N'EDITION') as sysname);
SELECT case when @edition = N'SQL Azure' then 2 else 1 end as 'DatabaseEngineType',
SERVERPROPERTY('EngineEdition') AS DatabaseEngineEdition,
SERVERPROPERTY('ProductVersion') AS ProductVersion,
@@MICROSOFTVERSION AS MicrosoftVersion;
select host_platform from sys.dm_os_host_info
if @edition = N'SQL Azure' 
  select 'TCP' as ConnectionProtocol
else
  exec ('select CONVERT(nvarchar(40),CONNECTIONPROPERTY(''net_transport'')) as ConnectionProtocol')

    This fails on SQL Azure, because the DMV sys.dm_os_host_info is not available there.

    Not that I understand why this batch is being submitted at all, but I guess they did not find it worth the effort fix this issue. And, in a way, I'm inclined to think that this is a good thing, because there are quite a few things that the Query Designer does not support, so it can more of a roadblock than a help.

    But if you think that it should work, you can submit a suggestion here:
    https://feedback.azure.com/d365community/forum/04fe6ee0-3b25-ec11-b6e6-000d3a4f0da0

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