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Importing a Database into VS Code

j_folberth — Fri, 5 Jul 2024 10:52:48 PDT

About

This article will talk through how one can import an existing database that lives on a SQL Server either on prem or in Azure onto a local machine. This import will create a .sqlproj. Per the documentation a sql Project is:

A Management Studio project is a collection of logically related scripts and files that can be saved together for database administration and development.

Once we have this then we will have the ability to make and test changes locally, place the contents under source control, and leverage Azure DevOps for CI/CD deployment. One misnomer that I will call out is that we will do this all without leveraging a Visual Studio License, which historically has been a prerequisite for managing SQL Databases.

Pre Reqs

In order to follow along with this process, one will need to have a combination of access and software installed on their computer. I will be walking through using Visual Studio Code; however, the process is quite similar if leveraging Azure Data Studio.

Visual Studio Code with the SQL Database Projects Extension OR Azure Data Studio
Via network connectivity/firewall ability to establish a connection to the desired SQL Database
Ability to login to the database and read all schema objects. This can be achieved via SQL Login or Entra ID. We will use Entra ID for our purposes.

Importing the Database

Now we will go step by step how to effectively download and recreate the database schema files on our local machine. This process will entail Creating the Connection Profile, Downloading the Database, and Confirming Your Local Copy.

Creating the Connection Profile

The first step is to launch Visual Studio Code (VS Code), or Azure Data Studio. Once we have this launched VS Code, we will leverage the Command Pallet in VS Code by the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+P and type in "Database Projects"

This will provide a list of actions one can perform in VS Code leveraging the Database Projects Extension. In our case we want to select "Database Projects: Create Project From Database"

After selecting this you will see an option to "Create Connection Profile" --it is possible if you have previously used Data Studio or VS Code to create a Connection Profile to the desired database in the past. If so, then feel free to skip this section.

The next prompt will ask you for the connection string. We will use just the server address to keep it basic. I am using a SQL PaaS Database that contains just the sample schema/data for Adventure Works.

We will then be prompted for an optional parameter to include the name of the database we'd like to download. I HIGHLY recommend scoping your project import to a single database. The reason behind this is, typically, individual databases are maintained, operated, and scoped for a single purpose. This means in the grand scheme of source control management and CI/CD we would want to scope our projects according to not only lifecycle but purpose as well.

In my case the database name is "sqlmoveme"

We will then be prompted to how to authenticate to the SQL DB. I will be using "Microsoft Entra Id - Universal". The next screen will confirm the Entra Account we will be using to connect if leveraging SQL Login it will ask for the username and password. Odds are you will be choosing the "Add" option. When clicking this VS Code will launch a new browser session where you will log/MFA into the Entra ID Tenant.

After this step the MSSQL library will be testing a connection behind the scenes. This can be confirmed in the VS Code Output window by selecting MSSQL from the drop down and inspecting the logging:

Downloading the Database

After connecting VS Code will now prompt you to give your project a name. I would recommend naming the project either the same as your database or something similar.

After this VS Code will now ask what folder we should download and create the .sqlproj in.

I would recommend each database you are downloading have a separate folder. This will help later if we want to put our database under source control.

Once we have a location we will be asked how to import the database. This can be a bit of a dealer's choice; however, I am going to choose to import the "Schema/Object Type" option. Others are perfectly fine.

Once selecting this you will be prompted if permissions and security scripts should be included. I would advise you not to include this as it will contain the credentials for SQL Logins, which we should not be storing under source control.

The next prompt around "SDK-style project" may sound a bit confusing. This is prompting the user if they'd like to leverage Use SDK-style projects with the SQL Database Projects extension though listed in preview at the time of this writing I'd still encourage you to select this option. It will let us build the .sqlproj leveraging a 'dotnet build' build command and more importantly won't require us to have Visual Studio.

Once selected VS Code will download the database locally and the result, in the case of Adventure Works, will look like:

Confirming Your Local Copy

At this point we can see the database schemas, in our example this is just `dbo` and `SalesLT`. If expanding these folders we can see all the object types and their definitions. In this screenshot the table Address has been selected and one can see the associated SQL script:

Let's make a change and save it. I am going to add an "Address Line3" with NULLs being allowed into our table definition and save it.

Now let's right click the Address.sql file in the File Explorer and select "Reveal in File Explorer". This will launch File Explorer where we can confirm the date modified on our Address.sql has been updated.

Building the Database

Now that we confirmed we can make these changes in our local .sqlproj the next logical question is how should we deploy or product an artifact to deploy. Since we are using the SDK-style projects with the SQL Database Projects extension a `dotnet build` command entered in the VS Code terminal will produce our deployable artifact. I am going to use .dacpac for future iterations of this blog series.

Next Steps

Once we have the .dacpac file locally we can deploy this either manually through SQL Server Management Studio or Azure Data Tools or preferrable through a CI/CD process which I will cover in a future post leveraging the SqlAzureDacpacDeployment task. However; before we do that we should discuss how to push the database project we just created to source control. To be alerted when this blog is available be sure to follow me on Tech Community

MVP’s Favorite Content: .NET at Microsoft Build, C#, Azure

RieMoriguchi — Fri, 5 Jul 2024 08:00:00 PDT

In this blog series dedicated to Microsoft's technical articles, we'll highlight our MVPs' favorite article along with their personal insights.

Edi Wang, Microsoft Azure MVP, China

.NET Announcements and Updates from Microsoft Build 2024 - .NET Blog

“This blog provides a detailed overview of the updates made to the .NET platform at Build 2024. For someone like me who doesn't have the time to watch the entire Build conference recording, this article is extremely helpful as it allows me to quickly grasp the information I'm interested in. The article's structure is well-organized, the code examples are concise and clear, and it offers enough links for readers to delve deeper into related topics."

Yin Zhang, Developer Technologies MVP, China

The Task Asynchronous Programming (TAP) model with async and await" - C# | Microsoft Learn

“Asynchronous programming is considered one of the most impressive features of C#. This article aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how asynchronous programming works behind the scenes, enabling developers to appreciate the elegance of C# on a deeper level."

Wilson Wu, Microsoft Azure, Developer Technologies MVP, China

Cloud solutions | Microsoft Azure

“Users and customers can get good solution suggestions from this page, and for some similar use cases, it is good reference to use.”

Shunsuke Yoshikawa, Microsoft Azure MVP, Japan

New: Secure Sandboxes at Scale with Azure Container Apps Dynamic Sessions - Microsoft Community Hub

“It is an article introducing new features of Azure Container Apps that provide a secure sandbox environment. You can safely execute code generated by LLM and verify the results. These features will be useful for implementing AI-powered workloads.”

(In Japanese, セキュアなサンドボックス環境を提供するAzure Container Appsの新機能を紹介する記事です。LLMが生成したコードを安全に実行し、結果を確認できます。AIを活用したワークロードを実現するうえで、便利な機能となるでしょう。)

*Relevant Blog: 【Microsoft Build 2024速報】Azure Container Apps Dynamic Sessions で安全にコードを実行する - APC 技術ブログ (ap-com.co.jp)

*MVP profile details as of June 30, 2024.

New on Azure Marketplace: June 21-26, 2024

Luxmi_Nagaraj — Fri, 5 Jul 2024 06:00:00 PDT

We continue to expand the Azure Marketplace ecosystem. For this volume, 130 new offers successfully met the onboarding criteria and went live. See details of the new offers below:

Get it now in our marketplace
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New storage features in Windows Server 2025

Dan Cuomo — Fri, 5 Jul 2024 05:00:00 PDT

Spoiler

Windows Server 2025 is the most secure and performant release yet! Download the evaluation now!

Looking to migrate from VMware to Windows Server 2025? Contact your Microsoft account team!

Windows Server 2025 is the most secure and performant release yet! Download the evaluation now! Looking to migrate from VMware to Windows Server 2025? Contact your Microsoft account team!

The 2024 Windows Server Summit was held in March and brought three days of demos, technical sessions, and Q&A, led by Microsoft engineers, guest experts from Intel®, and our MVP community. For more videos from this year’s Windows Server Summit, please find the full session list here.

This article focuses on what’s new and what’s coming in Windows Server 2025.

New storage features in Windows Server 2025

Explore storage features in Windows Server 2025. We'll showcase exciting new capabilities in the ReFS file system, software-defined storage with Storage Spaces, innovation in Storage-spaces Direct (S2D), and new enhancements for Storage Area Networks (SANs) such as NVMe over Fabrics (NVMeoF). We will also show some of the incredible storage performance enhancements that make upgrading to Windows Server 2025 a must. Come for an overview of everything new, then dive into demos and a look "under the hood" of storage in Windows Server.

Generative AI for Beginners - Full Videos Series Released!

koreyspace — Fri, 5 Jul 2024 00:00:00 PDT

If you are a developer interested in learning more about Generative AI, "Generative AI for Beginners" is the perfect course for you. With 18 new video lessons, this open source Github repo covers everything from basic concepts to advanced techniques for building Generative AI applications. Each lesson includes both written and short video lessons, making it easy to follow along and learn at your own pace.

The course is designed for developers of all skill levels, but is especially helpful for those who are new to the field. It covers a wide range of topics, including how to create popular application types such as text generation, chat applications, and image generation. You can take the course in order or start and stop and focus on the lessons that interest you most.

One of the great things about this course is that it's open source, which means you can make a pull request if you see an opportunity to improve it. Our Microsoft AI Discord community is also very active, with a channel where learners can discuss and learn more about building Generative AI applications.

You can meet other learner from the course in the Azure AI Discord where we host community roundtables to help further discuss and learn about building GenAI applications.

Here is a complete lesson list:

Introduction to Generative AI and LLMs

Exploring and comparing different LLMs

Using Generative AI Responsibly

Understanding Prompt Engineering Fundamentals

Creating Advanced Prompts

Building Text Generation Applications

Building Chat Applications

Building Search Apps Vector Databases

Building Image Generation Applications

Building Low Code AI Applications

Integrating External Applications with Function Calling

Designing UX for AI Applications

Securing Your Generative AI Applications

The Generative AI Application Lifecycle

Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and Vector Databases

Open Source Models and Hugging Face

AI Agents

Fine-Tuning LLMs

The course is open source so feel free to make a pull request if you see an opportunity to make any improvements! "Generative AI for Beginners" is the perfect course for developers who want to learn more about this exciting field. With its comprehensive lessons and open source approach, it's sure to be a valuable resource for anyone looking to get started with Generative AI.

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Importing a Database into VS Code

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Importing the Database

Creating the Connection Profile

Downloading the Database

Confirming Your Local Copy

Building the Database

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New storage features in Windows Server 2025

New storage features in Windows Server 2025

Generative AI for Beginners - Full Videos Series Released!