So I was asked today to provide my good friend and colleague Martin Bengtsson with an Azure SQL Database (DB) for project regarding reporting from Config manager using Power BI.
First thing first, you cannot just create a SQL DB azure, you need to have a SQL server – As-a-Service. Then you can create all the databases you need.
Creating the SQL Server
So to begin with, login to https://portal.azure.com and use the search bar to find “SQL server” and select “SQL servers”
When select, the next page you’ll see is where all your SQL servers will be listed. Find the button where it says “Create SQL Server” – If you can’t locate the button because of the list with all the SQL servers in your subscription, then click on “Add” in the top left cornor.
You have now arrived on the form page, where you need to fill out the basic for creating a SQL server As-a-Service. You need to select the subscription you want the SQL server to be billed to (if you have more than one subscription) and a resource group. (You can click on the text: “Create new” under the resource group selection box and type a name for the resource group.
After that, you need to come up with a name for the SQL server. The name is unique for all of Azure and the name has to be lowercase and numbers. Next up you need to select where in the world you want the SQL server to be hosted. In my example it’s West EU.
Finally you will need to select a username and password for the admin account on the SQL server, this user has total control of the SQL server, so do not share this account with everyone.
After the basics has been filled out, and you have pressed next, you will then be asked if you want to allow Azure services to connect to the SQL server. This basically means if you select “Yes” then you can use the SQL quiery editor in the portal or connecting a Azure VM to the SQL server.
In the next menu you will be asked about if you want “advanced security” enabled. For this post I have select “No”, but I’ll recommend that you select yes for production SQL Servers in Azure.
You have now arrived at “Tags” this is nice feature that enables you to have governance in your Azure subscription. Select the tags you want (or not) and press next.
Now you can review the settings you have type in and are ready to create the SQL server.
Creating the Azure SQL Datbase.
To create a database in the SQL server we have just created, start in the search bar again and do a search for “SQL server” and then select your SQL Server in the list
After you have select the SQL server, you will be redirected to the SQL servers info page. In the top left corner, you can select “Create Database”, select that, and you will be taking to new page where we need to fill out some information about the SQL Database.
The first thing you need fill out is the name of the database, in my example it’s “MyDB01”
You then need to configure the database. This is where money and performance is a factor.
See this way, the more performance and storage you want, the more money you have to spend.
In my example, I have select the smallest one under “Baisc” and that is a 2 GB database for the small amount of 34 Danish Kr. (Translated to about 3 cheeseburgers at McDonalds)
Tip: if you don’t know how much performance and storage you need – Select the smallest one. You can always scale up – This applies to every resource in Azure.
After you have typed in the name of the Database and selected how much storage and performance you need. You can just select “next” all the way to “create”
You have now create a SQL server and a SQL Database in Azure.