Windows Azure SQL Database and ArcGIS

Microsoft Windows Azure SQL Database is a cloud-based database service.

To use ArcGIS with Windows Azure SQL Database, install the SQL Server Native Client on the ArcGIS client machine and make a database connection from the ArcGIS client.

If you are familiar with using ArcGIS with SQL Server, you will find that the majority of the time, how you work with a Windows Azure SQL Database from ArcGIS will be identical to how you work with an on-premises SQL Server database. Exceptions include the following:

Outside ArcGIS

There are some tasks separate from ArcGIS that you perform directly in the database management system. If you are familiar with using SQL Server, there are some differences you should be aware of if you intend to use Windows Azure SQL Database databases instead. See Microsoft's documentation for information on these differences. Additionally, since Windows Azure SQL Database is a multitenant database service, connections can be closed under specific circumstances to free up the resource for other users. See Windows Azure SQL Database Connection Management on the Microsoft TechNet Wiki for a list of circumstances that could cause a connection to be closed and associated error messages.

Related Topics

2/5/2015