Project 31-A

There are several blog posts on this site answering how to copy an Azure SQL database. Since they are older or in some cases lost (Wayne's Microsoft blog posts are gone), I'll link to the Microsoft docs.  Enterprise data or functionality? Don't use these processes if you need change detection or other enterprise-level requirements. Copy the Azure SQL database and keep it in the cloud. Make a copy of your Azure Cloud database To copy an existing Azure SQL Database in the Azure portal, you can copy or export. Generally, I choose to export to Azure Storage Blob container as a bacpac file . This allows me to use it as either a cloud or local database. The bacpac file includes data and schema. Watch for export completion To watch for export completion, from the Azure Server (not database) in the portal, use the  Import/Export History in the Data Management section. Download bacpac file from Azure Storage To download the bacpac file, Azure Storage container in the Azure portal...

I recently moved an Azure SQL database back to a local development database and ran into a few issues. I took these notes so that they might help the next person that hits the problem. In my local SSMS, I use the Import/Export wizard with the datasource using SQL Server native client 11.0. This moves the tables and data. Any destination tables will not have IDENTITY as the source tables did.  Solution # 1  Move away from INT Identity to use GUIDS. This requires work in the database and client code but is the better choice if you need to move data out of the source datatabase then back into the source database.  Solution #2 More immediate fix to get past the block that your inserts don't autoincrement.  Steps: The following steps are completed in SSMS in the destination (local) database and should have all the data but not the IDENTITY column. Rename the mytable to mytable2. Generate CREATE, INSERT, and SELECT scripts for the table. Modify the CREATE script to use the...