Because the JetBrains folks do such a nice job of explaining the features and utility of 0xDBE on their website, the focus of this blog entry will be connecting to and querying Azure SQL Database once you have 0xDBE installed.

If you want to keep up to date with Azure SQL Database, follow us on Twitter (@AzureSQLDB). If you have questions, please ask us on [Stack Overflow] or [MSDN].

Prerequisites:

• Access to an Azure SQL Database [link]

To connect Azure SQL Database, in the "Database" view, click the "+", "Data Source" and then "SQL Server (Microsoft)".

You will be prompted with the following screen to describe your database connection. In the dropdown box next to the "URL" field, ensure that "default" is selected. Enter in the appropriate information for your database and click "Test Connection". If everything is correct (and your Azure SQL Database firewall rules are set to allow access from your machine), 0xDBE will tell you that the connection is successful. Click "Ok" at the bottom of the window.

You can now query your database.  Enter a query in the "Azure SQL Database Connection.sql" window and click ">". The results will be displayed in the output tab below.

You have now connected and queried your Azure SQL Database with 0xDBE on your Mac (or Linux machine). If you are familiar with SQL Server Management Studio, one of the immediate stylistic differences that you will notice when exploring your database with the object explorer (tree view of the database objects) is that 0xDBE organizes a database's objects by the schema, not by the tables. The default schema for a database is "dbo", unless specifically specified. Thus, your tables can be found under "dbo" as shown above.

If you want to keep up to date with Azure SQL Database, follow us on Twitter (@AzureSQLDB). If you have questions, please ask us on [Stack Overflow] or [MSDN].

Prerequisites:

• Access to an Azure SQL Database [link] or SQL Server (Express [link])
• Install Node.js and npm on Mac OS X [link]

npm install -g sql-cli

mssql -s yourServerName.database.windows.net -u yourUsername@yourServerName -p yourPassword -d yourDatabase –e

SELECT @@version

sql-cli version 0.4.5
 Enter ".help" for usage hints.
 mssql> .help
 
 command description 
 -------------- ------------------------------------------
 .help Shows this message 
 .tables Lists all the tables 
 .databases Lists all the databases 
 .read FILENAME Execute commands in a file 
 .run FILENAME Execute the file as a sql script 
 .schema TABLE Shows the schema of a table 
 .indexes TABLE Lists all the indexes of a table 
 .analyze Analyzes the database for missing indexes.
 .quit Exit the cli 
 
 mssql> 

While its true that developers do not have to worry about the underlying operating system of Azure SQL Database, they certainly do have to worry about their application operating system.  With greater than 20% of the VMs in Azure running Linux [link] and the popularity of Azure SQL Database, the SQL Database naturally gets many questions on how to connect to and manager Azure SQL Database from non-Windows platforms.  This blog will kick-off a series of articles and tutorials on how to do just that.

For Linux, the most natural place to start is with the Linux command line. In this blog we will install (and use) the quintessential SQL Server/SQL Database command line tools on Linux: SQLCMD and BCP.  For this tutorial, we’ll use Ubuntu 14.04 LTS as it is the least common denominator for the many flavors of Linux between developers and cloud providers.  

If you want to keep up to date with Azure SQL Database, follow us on Twitter (@AzureSQLDB). If you have questions, please ask us on [Stack Overflow] or [MSDN].

Prerequisites:

• Ubuntu 14.04 machine whether it is on your laptop, dev machine, in Azure [link], or another cloud provider
• Access to an Azure SQL Database [link] or SQL Server (Express [link])

Download the install script [source]:

wget https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/SQLCMD-and-BCP-for-Ubuntu-c88a28cc/file/142121/1/Ubuntu%2014.04%20MSFT%20ODBC%20Driver.sh

Install the SQLCMD, BCP and the Linux ODBC driver (execute the script from your user directory i.e, /home/nickfury/)

sudo bash Ubuntu\ 14.04\ MSFT\ ODBC\ Driver.sh 

Connect to Azure SQL Database (similar for SQL Server)

sqlcmd –S yourServerName.database.windows.net – U yourUsername – P yourPassword
 

Execute a command:

 1> Select @@version;
 2> Go

For more information:

• SQLCMD: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms162773.aspx
• BCP: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms162802.aspx
• Linux ODBC: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=28160

For questions:

• Stack Overflow [link]
• MSDN [link]

There are, however, a few prerequisites: 1) create an Azure Subscription, 2) provision a SQL Database, 3) configure the firewall, and 4) create a schema and insert sample data. The following video [link] provides a great guide on to accomplish steps 2) and 4) above. For the full getting started guide, please see the following [link].

To get the code, please see the Azure SQL Database: Hello World in the MSDN sample gallery.

Below is the simplified code that will enable one to quickly write a console application to connect to and read from an Azure SQL Database.


using System;


using System.Collections.Generic;


using System.Linq;


using System.Text;


using System.Threading.Tasks;


using System.Data.SqlClient;

namespace HelloWorldAzureSQLDatabase


{


 classProgram


  {

    static void Main()

    {


    SqlConnectionStringBuilder builder = newSqlConnectionStringBuilder();


      //The name of the Azure SQL Database server

      //Example: myFirstDatabase.database.windows.net

      builder["Server"] = "<name>.database.windows.net";


      //User ID of the entity attempting to connect to the database

      builder["User ID"] = "<userID>";

      //The password associated the User ID

      builder["Password"] = "<passowrd>";

      //Name of the target database

      builder["Database"] = "<databaseName>";

      //Denotes that the User ID and password are specified in the connection

      builder["Integrated Security"] = false;

      //By default, Azure SQL Database uses SSL encryption for all data sent between

      //the client and the database

      builder["Encrypt"] = true;

      //Create a SqlConnection from the provided connection string

      using (SqlConnection connection = newSqlConnection(builder.ToString()))

      {

        //Begin to formulate the command

        SqlCommand command = newSqlCommand();

        command.Connection = connection;

        //Sets the wait time (10 seconds) before terminating the attempt to execute a command and generate an error

        //Default value is 30 seconds;

        command.CommandTimeout = 10;

        //Specify the query to be executed

        command.CommandType = System.Data.CommandType.Text;

        command.CommandText = "Select count(*) from <tableName>";

        //Open connection to database

        connection.Open();

        //Read data from the query

        SqlDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader();

        while (reader.Read())

        {

          //Formatting will depend on the contents of the query

          Console.WriteLine("Value: {0}", reader[0]);

        }


      Console.WriteLine("\nPress any key to continue");

      Console.ReadLine();

      }


    }


  }


} 

From the link provided above, there are two quick ways that you can get going with this sample code.  First is to simply download the sample code for the MSDN Code Gallery.  The other option is to open Visual Studio, click File -> New -> Project.  On the left-hand side of the New Project Window, click “Online” -> Samples -> Visual C#.  In the search box in the top-right hand corner of the windows, search for “Azure SQL Database: Hello World”. Select the appropriate project and “click” OK.

Prerequisites:

• Install PowerShell (example script below was performed on PowerShell version 4.0 – current PowerShell version can be found by executing $PSVersionTable from the PowerShell command line
• Install Azure PowerShell
• Register for the New Service Tiers preview feature for SQL Database
• SQL database server that supports database editions “Basic, Standard, Premium”

PowerShell Script:

<#
.SYNOPSIS
Create a Standard database with an S2 performance level

.PARAMETER Name
N/A

.NOTES
Last Updated: 5/25/2014
#>

# Azure SQL Database server (Ex: bzb98er9bp)
$ServerName = "<ServerName>"

# Username for Azure SQL Database server
$ServerLogin = "<ServerLogin>"

# Password for Azure SQL Database server
$serverPassword = "<ServerPassword>"

# Name of new database to be created
$NewDbName = "MyS2Db"

# Establish credentials for Azure SQL Database Server
$Servercredential = new-object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential($ServerLogin, ($ServerPassword | ConvertTo-SecureString -asPlainText -Force))

# Create connection context for Azure SQL Database server
$CTX = New-AzureSqlDatabaseServerContext -ManageUrl “https://$ServerName.database.windows.net” -Credential $ServerCredential

# Specify the specific performance level for the $NewDbName
$PerformanceLevel = Get-AzureSqlDatabaseServiceObjective -Context $CTX -ServiceObjectiveName "S2"

# Create new Basic database
New-AzureSqlDatabase -ConnectionContext $CTX -DatabaseName $NewDbName -Edition "Standard" -MaxSizeGB 10 -ServiceObjective $PerformanceLevel  

Success looks like the following:

The creation of the new database will take a few moments to complete and presence of the new database can be seen in the Azure Portal immediately.  The progress of the readiness of the new database can further be tracked with the following command:

Get-AzureSqlDatabase $CTX –DatabaseName $NewDbName

Once the Standard S2 database has been fully provisioned, success looks like the following:

To enumerate all the available database service tiers and their respective performance levels, one augment the example script with the following (and omit the New-AzureSqlDatabse command):

Get-AzureSqlDatabaseServiceObjective -Context $CTX

The same script can be also be used to provision Basic or Premium database too. To create a Basis database, the example script can be modified as follows:

# Specify the specific performance level for the $NewDbName
$PerformanceLevel = Get-AzureSqlDatabaseServiceObjective -Context $CTX -ServiceObjectiveName "Basic"

# Create new Basic database
New-AzureSqlDatabase -ConnectionContext $CTX -DatabaseName $NewDbName -Edition "Basic" -MaxSizeGB 2 -ServiceObjective $PerformanceLevel