SQL Azure via Visual Studio

Question

Does anyone know when a tool will be available to manage a SQL Azure database from within Visual Studio or SQL Enterprise Manager?

Answer 1

At present one can only cannect via:

1) SQL Management Studio (SSMS) (The cancel and connect via new query method)

2) Azure Storage Manager: http://azurestoragemanager.codeplex.com/

3) SQL Azure Migration Wizard: http://sqlazuremw.codeplex.com/

4) Custom Application

I have gone down the custom route, an application that basically runs scripts within different folders to Update Tables and Stored Procesures etc.

Answer 2

Plus:

• SQL Azure Explorer on Codeplex - free and with source code (addin for VS2010 Beta1)
• Cerebrata Cloud Storage Studio - Winforms app to browse SQL Azure
• Cerebrata Omega.MSSQL browser-based admin of SQL Server including SQL Azure (see announcement in blog post here)

Marc

Answer 3

Few corrections below:

1. Cloud Storage Studio is for managing Windows Azure Storage (Tables, Blobs & Queues) and not SQL Azure.

2. Omega.MSSQL is for managing SQL Server (2008/2005/2000) via a browser based interface (IE only). We customized Omega.MSSQL to work against SQL Azure. That customized version is available online only. To read more about it and access the application please visit this link: http://cerebrata.com/Blog/post/Browser-based-SQL-Azure-Explorer.aspx

Answer 4

Haven't tried personally, but according to the SQL Azure team the November CTP of SQL Server 2008 R2 has a version of Management Studio that will allow direct connections to SQL Azure without having to do the cancel/connect workaround:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ssds/archive/2009/11/10/9920168.aspx