How to copy and backup SQL Databases in Azure

Let’s say you want a copy of your database for some reasons.  Scenarios might vary.  Maybe you want to bring back production DB to another environment.

There are at least three ways I could think to do that with the Azure Portal:

• Copy the Database
• Restore a version of the Database
• Backup / Restore the current Database

Copy...

Row Level Security in 3-tiers applications

Row-Level Security is a great new feature in SQL.  It is already available in Azure SQL Database and will be available in SQL Server 2016.

This is Cloud-First for you.

Row-Level Security allows you to forbid a user to see and/or access data they shouldn’t be able to see.  Traditionally this is implemented at the application level, for...

I tortured Azure in the Week-End

In my last blog post, I showed how to author an Azure Runbook to turn VMs up and down.

In order to test it I did put a schedule where at every hour (e.g. 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, etc.) it would start the VMs and at every pass half hour (e.g. 1:30, 2:30, 3:30, etc.).

The thing is that I...

Shutting down VMs on schedule in Azure

I thought it was time for a post on the quintessential automation task:  shutting down VMs & starting them on a schedule.

UPDATE (Nov-27th 2016):  this particular task is now available directly in the VM portal (at least the shut down part of it).  This article remains interesting to look at a complete example of Azure Automation.

This is a...

Using Azure Active Directory Service Principal

You need an Azure Active Directory (AAD) identity to run some of your services:  perhaps an Azure Runbook, Azure SQL Database, etc.  .

You could create a normal user in Azure Active Directory and use it.  If your AAD is synchronized with an on-premise one, it will get more complicated though.  You will need to create it on premise and...