1. Log on to https://sql.azure.com

2. Click on your project

3. Click on the tab "Firewall Settings"

4. Click on Add Rule. It will show your current IP address on the pop up box. Add the range so that any connection from that IP address is allowed.

5. Once this is done open your SQL Management console and add the full server name.

6. Enter your SQL user name password as configured by you on the portal.

After all these steps, I was confident that a connetion will go through. Unfortunately it did not work as expected. I found an url that had further trouble shooting tips that can be found at https://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlazure/archive/2010/03/22/9982979.aspx 

All these steps passed expect for ping request that was still missing some packets. I tried connecting with SQLCMD which was a success as well.

Syntax for SQLCMD is as below

 sqlcmd -S <SERVER NAME.Domain.com> -d master -U " <UserName>@<ServerName>" -P <PUTYOURPASSWORDHERE> -q "select 1"

 Even after these trouble shooting I was still not able to get connected. I saw that I am running ISA Client  a firewall client on top of windows firewall. I reverted all the settings to its default on the windows firewal on my local machine and reinstalled ISA Client. It had some issues connecting to the proxy which was stopping me to get connected.

This worked like a piece of cake. I got access to SQL Azure from my local machine.

I am hoping this will help many of you to save time and look for areas that will help in resolve issues by looking into area which might get neglected.  

If you want to change the service administrator ID on your subscription, You will need to Login to MOCP and then follow the below steps.

ü  Login to https://mocp.microsoftonline.com

ü  Click on Subscription Tab on the top

ü  You will see your Azure subscription under “Subscriptions” tab.

ü  On the right side of the Azure Subscription, you will find “Actions”

ü  Please select “Edit service details” from the dropdown and click “Go”

ü  You will see a service activation window

ü  Click on Next on Service Details

ü  Then you will see “Service Administrator” page

                Here, in this page you will be able to change the Service Administrator ID.

ü  Then click on Next to complete the process.

The above given steps will help you change the service administrator ID. This will also allow you to have two sperated logins for billing and Managing the service.

In some cases there could be a scenario where you signed up to use Azure with your @company.com domain. However either some user id or a domain is not compatible as it is not fedrated. Federation is a trust based agreement between two organisations. Follow the link to get more information on Microsoft Federation Gateway

This could lead to a problem statement where users are not able to log in using their passport ID with non-federated email id. Following the above steps it is possible to have them both seperated for easy usage.