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Quickstart: Use the Azure portal to create an Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server

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  • 5 minutes to read

APPLIES TO: Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server

Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server is a managed service that you can use to run, manage, and scale highly available MySQL servers in the cloud. This quickstart shows you how to create a flexible server by using the Azure portal.

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

Sign in to the Azure portal

Go to the Azure portal. Enter your credentials to sign in to the portal. The default view is your service dashboard.

Create an Azure Database for MySQL flexible server

You create a flexible server with a defined set of compute and storage resources. You create the server within an Azure resource group.

Complete these steps to create a flexible server:

  1. Search for and select Azure Database for MySQL servers in the portal:

    Screenshot that shows a search for Azure Database for MySQL servers.

  2. Select Create.

  3. On the Select Azure Database for MySQL deployment option page, select Flexible server as the deployment option:

    Screenshot that shows the Flexible server option.

  4. On the Basics tab, enter the following information:

    Screenshot that shows the Basics tab of the Flexible server page.

    Setting Suggested value Description
    Subscription Your subscription name The Azure subscription that you want to use for your server. If you have multiple subscriptions, choose the subscription in which you want to be billed for the resource.
    Resource group myresourcegroup A new resource group name or an existing one from your subscription.
    Server name mydemoserver A unique name that identifies your flexible server. The domain name mysql.database.azure.com is appended to the server name you provide. The server name can contain only lowercase letters, numbers, and the hyphen (-) character. It must contain between 3 and 63 characters.
    Region The region closest to your users The location that's closest to your users.
    Workload type Development For production workload, you can choose Small/Medium-size or Large-size depending on max_connections requirements
    Availability zone No preference If your application client is provisioned in a specific availability zone, you can specify your flexible server in the same availability zone to collocate application cutting down network latency across zones.
    High Availability Unchecked For production servers, choose between zone redundant high availability and same-zone high availability. This is highly recommended for business continuity and protection against VM failures
    Standby availability zone No preference Choose the standby server zone location and colocate it with the application standby server in case of zone failure
    MySQL version 5.7 A MySQL major version.
    Admin username mydemouser Your own sign-in account to use when you connect to the server. The admin user name can't be azure_superuser, admin, administrator, root, guest, or public.
    Password Your password A new password for the server admin account. It must contain between 8 and 128 characters. It must also contain characters from three of the following categories: English uppercase letters, English lowercase letters, numbers (0 through 9), and non-alphanumeric characters (!, $, #, %, and so on).
    Compute + storage Burstable, Standard_B1ms, 10 GiB, 100 iops, 7 days The compute, storage, IOPS, and backup configurations for your new server. Select Configure server. Burstable, Standard_B1ms, 10 GiB, 100 iops, and 7 days are the default values for Compute tier, Compute size, Storage size, iops, and backup Retention period. You can leave those values as is or adjust them. For faster data loads during migration, it is recommended to increase the IOPS to the maximum size supported by compute size and later scale it back to save cost. To save the compute and storage selection, select Save to continue with the configuration. The following screenshot shows the compute and storage options.

    Screenshot that shows compute and storage options.

  5. Configure networking options.

    On the Networking tab, you can choose how your server is reachable. Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server provides two ways to connect to your server:

    • Public access (allowed IP addresses)
    • Private access (VNet Integration)

    When you use public access, access to your server is limited to allowed IP addresses that you add to a firewall rule. This method prevents external applications and tools from connecting to the server and any databases on the server, unless you create a rule to open the firewall for a specific IP address or range. When you use private access (VNet Integration), access to your server is limited to your virtual network. Learn more about connectivity methods in the concepts article.

    In this quickstart, you'll learn how to enable public access to connect to the server. On the Networking tab, for Connectivity method select Public access. For configuring Firewall rules, select Add current client IP address.

    Note

    You can't change the connectivity method after you create the server. For example, if you select Public access (allowed IP addresses) when you create the server, you can't change to Private access (VNet Integration) after the server is created. We highly recommend that you create your server with private access to help secure access to your server via VNet Integration. Learn more about private access in the concepts article.

    Screenshot that shows the Networking tab.

  6. Select Review + create to review your flexible server configuration.

  7. Select Create to provision the server. Provisioning can take a few minutes.

  8. Select Notifications on the toolbar (the bell button) to monitor the deployment process. After the deployment is done, you can select Pin to dashboard, which creates a tile for the flexible server on your Azure portal dashboard. This tile is a shortcut to the server's Overview page. When you select Go to resource, the server's Overview page opens.

By default, these databases are created under your server: information_schema, mysql, performance_schema, and sys.

Note

To avoid connectivity problems, check if your network allows outbound traffic over port 3306, which is used by Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server.

Connect to the server

Before getting started, download the public SSL certificate for certificate authority verification.

For MySQL servers created with public access connectivity method, you can get started quickly with built-in MySQL command line client tool by clicking on Connect button in Overview page.

Screenshot that how to connect with Azure cloud shell.

You can go to Connect page to view more details on how to connect locally with MySQL client tool or perform import and export data operations.

Screenshot that shows connect page.

Important

If you see the following error message while connecting to your flexible server following the command earlier, you missed setting the firewall rule using the "Allow public access from any Azure service within Azure to this server" mentioned earlier or the option isn't saved. Please retry setting firewall and try again. ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to MySQL server on <servername> (115)

Clean up resources

When no longer needed, you can delete the resource group with MySQL Flexible Server. To do so, select the resource group for the MySQL flexible server resource and select Delete, then confirm the name of the resource group to delete.

Next steps

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