Windows Azure - Connect to SQL Azure

(Remember to check the Use SQL Server Authentication check box)

Now select the database we created and press Test Connection button. If you get the succeeded message box, you have a valid SQL Azure connection. Good Job!



Now press OK on the Add Connection dialog and from the properties window, you can collect the connection string as shown below.



Connect using SqlConnection class

Now we have the valid connection string, we can try connecting through code.

Open the code view of Default.aspx from the web role project. Add the following code into it. (Resolve the namespaces)

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string connectionString = "your connection string here";

SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString);
connection.Open();

if (connection.State == System.Data.ConnectionState.Open)
Label1.Text = "Connection Succeeded!";
else
Label1.Text = "Connection Failure!";
}

Open the design view of Default.aspx and add a label control into it. You may remove the data source control from there.

Now execute the application and you can see the result as shown below.



If the message is Connection Succeeded you are having a valid connection established with SQL Azure.

Collecting Connection String from Windows Azure Portal

We can also get the connection string from the azure portal by selecting the database and clicking the View connection string button.



Then the following dialog box shows the connection string. The first one ADO.NET represents our needed connection string.



Summary

In this article we have seen how to get the database server name, get the connection string and connect it using c# code.