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Unable to create External table in Azure SQL / SQL (onpremise) using Azure Storage as Source

Arun Agrawal 1 Reputation point
2020-08-11T10:15:38.553+00:00

Hey Team ,

I am trying to create external table using Azure Storage as source.

In Azure SQL , i am getting error : External tables are not supported with the provided data source type.

In OnPremise DB , Incorrect syntax near 'EXTERNAL'.

Please help me to provide some clarity on this topic

Regards
Arun

Azure SQL Database
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. Vaibhav Chaudhari 38,671 Reputation points
    2020-08-11T11:14:17.337+00:00

    In Azure SQL DB, I think we can create only external tables that points to different SQL database table.

    For reference - handle-error-external-tables-are-not-supported-with-the-provided-data-source-ty

    In on-premise DB, this should be possible though. See step by step document -

    On-premise SQL - polybase-configure-azure-blob-storage

    ===============================================

    If the response helped, do "Accept Answer" and upvote it -- Vaibhav

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  2. Cris Zhan-MSFT 6,611 Reputation points
    2020-08-12T07:11:08.637+00:00

    Hi Arun,

    You can creates an external table for PolyBase to access data stored in a Hadoop cluster or Azure blob storage in SQL Server 2016 or higher(onpremise).Please refer to the Configure PolyBase to access external data in Azure Blob Storage.

    But the Polybase is not supported in Azure SQL Database, external tables that reference the files in HDFS or Azure Blob storage aren't supported. In Azure SQL Database, you can access data stored in Azure Blob Storage using BULK INSERT or OPENROWSET function. See here for more information.

    Best regards,
    Cris

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