Tutorial: Design a relational database in Azure SQL Database using SSMS

Applies to: Azure SQL Database

Azure SQL Database is a relational database-as-a-service (DBaaS) in the Microsoft Cloud (Azure). In this tutorial, you learn how to use the Azure portal and SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to:

• Create a database using the Azure portal*
• Set up a server-level IP firewall rule using the Azure portal
• Connect to the database with SSMS
• Create tables with SSMS
• Bulk load data with BCP
• Query data with SSMS

*If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.

Tip

This free Learn module shows you how to Develop and configure an ASP.NET application that queries an Azure SQL Database, including the creation of a simple database.

Note

For the purpose of this tutorial, we are using Azure SQL Database. You could also use a pooled database in an elastic pool or a SQL Managed Instance. For connectivity to a SQL Managed Instance, see these SQL Managed Instance quickstarts: Quickstart: Configure Azure VM to connect to an Azure SQL Managed Instance and Quickstart: Configure a point-to-site connection to an Azure SQL Managed Instance from on-premises.

Prerequisites

To complete this tutorial, make sure you've installed:

• SQL Server Management Studio (latest version)
• BCP and SQLCMD (latest version)

Sign in to the Azure portal

Sign in to the Azure portal.

Create a blank database in Azure SQL Database

A database in Azure SQL Database is created with a defined set of compute and storage resources. The database is created within an Azure resource group and is managed using an logical SQL server.

Follow these steps to create a blank database.

1. On the Azure portal menu or from the Home page, select Create a resource.

2. On the New page, select Databases in the Azure Marketplace section, and then click SQL Database in the Featured section.

   

3. Fill out the SQL Database form with the following information, as shown on the preceding image:

   Setting	Suggested value	Description
   Database name	yourDatabase	For valid database names, see Database identifiers.
   Subscription	yourSubscription	For details about your subscriptions, see Subscriptions.
   Resource group	yourResourceGroup	For valid resource group names, see Naming rules and restrictions.
   Select source	Blank database	Specifies that a blank database should be created.

4. Choose a server from the drop-down to use an existing server or select Create new to create and configure a new server. Either select an existing server or click Create a new server and fill out the New server form with the following information:

   Setting	Suggested value	Description
   Server name	Any globally unique name	For valid server names, see Naming rules and restrictions.
   Server admin login	Any valid name	For valid login names, see Database identifiers.
   Password	Any valid password	Your password must have at least eight characters and must use characters from three of the following categories: upper case characters, lower case characters, numbers, and non-alphanumeric characters.
   Location	Any valid location	For information about regions, see Azure Regions.

   

5. Click Select.

6. Click Pricing tier to specify the service tier, the number of DTUs or vCores, and the amount of storage. You may explore the options for the number of DTUs/vCores and storage that is available to you for each service tier.

   After selecting the service tier, the number of DTUs or vCores, and the amount of storage, click Apply.

7. Enter a Collation for the blank database (for this tutorial, use the default value). For more information about collations, see Collations

8. Now that you've completed the SQL Database form, click Create to provision the database. This step may take a few minutes.

9. On the toolbar, click Notifications to monitor the deployment process.

   

Create a server-level IP firewall rule

Azure SQL Database creates an IP firewall at the server-level. This firewall prevents external applications and tools from connecting to the server and any databases on the server unless a firewall rule allows their IP through the firewall. To enable external connectivity to your database, you must first add an IP firewall rule for your IP address (or IP address range). Follow these steps to create a server-level IP firewall rule.

Important

Azure SQL Database communicates over port 1433. If you are trying to connect to this service from within a corporate network, outbound traffic over port 1433 may not be allowed by your network's firewall. If so, you cannot connect to your database unless your administrator opens port 1433.

1. After the deployment completes, select SQL databases from the Azure portal menu or search for and select SQL databases from any page.

2. Select yourDatabase on the SQL databases page. The overview page for your database opens, showing you the fully qualified Server name (such as contosodatabaseserver01.database.windows.net) and provides options for further configuration.

   

3. Copy this fully qualified server name for use to connect to your server and databases from SQL Server Management Studio.

4. Select Networking under Settings. Choose the Public Access tab, and then select Selected networks under Public network access to display the Firewall rules section.

   

5. Select Add your client IPv4 on the toolbar to add your current IP address to a new IP firewall rule. An IP firewall rule can open port 1433 for a single IP address or a range of IP addresses.

6. Select Save. A server-level IP firewall rule is created for your current IP address opening port 1433 on the server.

7. Select OK and then close the Firewall settings page.

Your IP address can now pass through the IP firewall. You can now connect to your database using SQL Server Management Studio or another tool of your choice. Be sure to use the server admin account you created previously.

Important

By default, access through the SQL Database IP firewall is enabled for all Azure services. Click OFF on this page to disable for all Azure services.

Connect to the database

Use SQL Server Management Studio to establish a connection to your database.

1. Open SQL Server Management Studio.

2. In the Connect to Server dialog box, enter the following information:

   Setting	Suggested value	Description
   Server type	Database engine	This value is required.
   Server name	The fully qualified server name	For example, yourserver.database.windows.net.
   Authentication	SQL Server Authentication	SQL Authentication is the only authentication type that we've configured in this tutorial.
   Login	The server admin account	The account that you specified when you created the server.
   Password	The password for your server admin account	The password that you specified when you created the server.

   

3. Click Options in the Connect to server dialog box. In the Connect to database section, enter yourDatabase to connect to this database.

   

4. Click Connect. The Object Explorer window opens in SSMS.

5. In Object Explorer, expand Databases and then expand yourDatabase to view the objects in the sample database.

   

Create tables in your database

Create a database schema with four tables that model a student management system for universities using Transact-SQL:

• Person
• Course
• Student
• Credit

The following diagram shows how these tables are related to each other. Some of these tables reference columns in other tables. For example, the Student table references the PersonId column of the Person table. Study the diagram to understand how the tables in this tutorial are related to one another. For an in-depth look at how to create effective database tables, see Create effective database tables. For information about choosing data types, see Data types.

Note

You can also use the table designer in SQL Server Management Studio to create and design your tables.

1. In Object Explorer, right-click yourDatabase and select New Query. A blank query window opens that is connected to your database.

2. In the query window, execute the following query to create four tables in your database:

   -- Create Person table
   CREATE TABLE Person
   (
       PersonId INT IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY,
       FirstName NVARCHAR(128) NOT NULL,
       MiddelInitial NVARCHAR(10),
       LastName NVARCHAR(128) NOT NULL,
       DateOfBirth DATE NOT NULL
   )
   
   -- Create Student table
   CREATE TABLE Student
   (
       StudentId INT IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY,
       PersonId INT REFERENCES Person (PersonId),
       Email NVARCHAR(256)
   )
   
   -- Create Course table
   CREATE TABLE Course
   (
       CourseId INT IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY,
       Name NVARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
       Teacher NVARCHAR(256) NOT NULL
   )
   
   -- Create Credit table
   CREATE TABLE Credit
   (
       StudentId INT REFERENCES Student (StudentId),
       CourseId INT REFERENCES Course (CourseId),
       Grade DECIMAL(5,2) CHECK (Grade <= 100.00),
       Attempt TINYINT,
       CONSTRAINT [UQ_studentgrades] UNIQUE CLUSTERED
       (
           StudentId, CourseId, Grade, Attempt
       )
   )
   

   

3. Expand the Tables node under yourDatabase in the Object Explorer to see the tables you created.

   

Load data into the tables

1. Create a folder called sampleData in your Downloads folder to store sample data for your database.

2. Right-click the following links and save them into the sampleData folder.

   • SampleCourseData
   • SamplePersonData
   • SampleStudentData
   • SampleCreditData

3. Open a command prompt window and navigate to the sampleData folder.

4. Execute the following commands to insert sample data into the tables replacing the values for server, database, user, and password with the values for your environment.

   bcp Course in SampleCourseData -S <server>.database.windows.net -d <database> -U <user> -P <password> -q -c -t ","
   bcp Person in SamplePersonData -S <server>.database.windows.net -d <database> -U <user> -P <password> -q -c -t ","
   bcp Student in SampleStudentData -S <server>.database.windows.net -d <database> -U <user> -P <password> -q -c -t ","
   bcp Credit in SampleCreditData -S <server>.database.windows.net -d <database> -U <user> -P <password> -q -c -t ","
   

You have now loaded sample data into the tables you created earlier.

Query data

Execute the following queries to retrieve information from the database tables. See Write SQL queries to learn more about writing SQL queries. The first query joins all four tables to find the students taught by 'Dominick Pope' who have a grade higher than 75%. The second query joins all four tables and finds the courses in which 'Noe Coleman' has ever enrolled.

1. In a SQL Server Management Studio query window, execute the following query:

   -- Find the students taught by Dominick Pope who have a grade higher than 75%
   SELECT  person.FirstName, person.LastName, course.Name, credit.Grade
   FROM  Person AS person
       INNER JOIN Student AS student ON person.PersonId = student.PersonId
       INNER JOIN Credit AS credit ON student.StudentId = credit.StudentId
       INNER JOIN Course AS course ON credit.CourseId = course.courseId
   WHERE course.Teacher = 'Dominick Pope'
       AND Grade > 75
   

2. In a query window, execute the following query:

   -- Find all the courses in which Noe Coleman has ever enrolled
   SELECT  course.Name, course.Teacher, credit.Grade
   FROM  Course AS course
       INNER JOIN Credit AS credit ON credit.CourseId = course.CourseId
       INNER JOIN Student AS student ON student.StudentId = credit.StudentId
       INNER JOIN Person AS person ON person.PersonId = student.PersonId
   WHERE person.FirstName = 'Noe'
       AND person.LastName = 'Coleman'
   

Next steps

In this tutorial, you learned many basic database tasks. You learned how to:

• Create a database using the Azure portal*
• Set up a server-level IP firewall rule using the Azure portal
• Connect to the database with SSMS
• Create tables with SSMS
• Bulk load data with BCP
• Query data with SSMS

Advance to the next tutorial to learn about designing a database using Visual Studio and C#.

Design a relational database within Azure SQL Database C# and ADO.NET