SQL Server 2014 in Windows Azure Virtual Machines

In this blog post we will see the hybrid platform for windows Azure SQL database in the cloud and Windows Azure Virtual Machines.
Let’s start by spinning up a new virtual machine from windows azure management portal.

After you navigate to Computer->Vertual Machine then click on From Gallery and let us build a new VM with SQL Server 2012R2 and SQL Server 2014 CTP1.

In the next page enter the VM name, select the size, enter a user name for the new machine and enter your password.

Select the virtual machine additional endpoints. We stick only the default endpoints Remote Desktop and PowerShell for our case.

Click on accept check mark when finish.

When finished we will get our brand new VM. To connect to the virtual machine click on Connect and download the *.rdp file.

Open the .rdp file enter your username and password you use to create the vm, click on okay, click on Yes in the next dialog to accept the certificate warning.

Just like that we get in to our VM. It is the first time for me to see the 2012R2 server and I am glad they stick the good old start button to the task bar.

Let’s open up SQL Server 2014 ctp1 and see if everything works as a bare metal environment.

I am going to write a simple script to see if we could create and work with database

use master;
go 
create database sql2014DB;
go
use sql2014DB;
go
create table sql2014Table(
	FirstName varchar(20),
	LastName varchar(20)
);
go
insert into sql2014Table(FirstName,LastName)
	values('Biz','Nigatu'),
		  ('Jason','Nigatu');
go

So far so good on the t-SQL side. Since we installed PowerShell earlier why don’t we try to query with it to see if it works.
I will open up sqlps and type the following script

# Let's navigate to the sql2014DB we created before 
cd sql\reckonedforceVM\default\databases\sql2014DB
# Let's check out the schema and the table name we have 
dir tables| %{$_.Schema,$_.name}
# Let's exectue a simple select statement on our table 
invoke-sqlcmd –Query "Select FirstName,LastName from dbo.sql2014Table;"

This might not be enough to conclude there is seamless hybrid cloud environment but from what I have tested so far we pretty much can do in our traditional bare metal environment.