For this post, we are assuming you do not have a Windows Azure account. We will create a brand new Windows Azure Cloud SQL Database. You will also need to have a FREE Live.com. So lets start with the basics. Please browse to this location.
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/
Click on Free Trial. At this point they will have you log into Live.com account. If you have not signed up for an account, you can do that at this web address.
Once you are signed in, after that you will get the following screen shot: It will also take you to this location.
https://account.windowsazure.com/signup?offer=ms-azr-0018p
In Part 2, you can verify the account using a phone. We entered our phone and then clicked on Send text message. Got the code and then entered the verification code.
In Part 3, you enter the billing info. This includes info on:
- Account
- Address
- Credit card info
After this we got confirmation that setting up our Windows Azure subscription was complete. After we clicked on Portal, here is what it looks like on our computer monitor,
In case you cannot find the portal, here is the direct website address for Windows Azure portal.
https://manage.windowsazure.com
We also got the Windows Azure tour shown below.
When we selected SQL databases in the Portal, there was no database. We are going to create one in the next step. We also choose the Cloud database name, edition, size and pick New SQL Database server.
The two following screen captures display what this Cloud db creation looks like on our end.
Next it is asking for Azure SQL database access info. Please remember to make it secure. Go ahead and enter the login name /pwd info. The password must meet the following requirements:
- Is more than eight characters in length
- Does not contain all or part of the login name
- Contains characters from at least three of the following categories:
- English uppercase characters (A through Z)
- English lowercase characters (a through z)
- Base 10 digits (0 through 9)
- Non-alphanumeric characters (for example: !, $, #, %)
We have included a graphic display for this:
Click on the check mark at the end. At this point, you are all set with a new Cloud database. In the next posts, we will show you how to create and design objects in Azure database. We will also import and export data. Here is what the final SQL database in Windows Azure looks like:
