Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Backups
Backing up your SQL Azure database is somewhat different from backing up traditional SQL Server
databases. You can't back up a SQL Azure database in the traditional sense, nor can you restore a SQL
Server database in SQL Azure. You do, however, have the ability to create a transactionally consistent
clone of a SQL Azure database. You can expect the following regarding backups:
•
Backup/Restore operations. These operations aren't available. In addition, you
may not attach or detach a SQL Azure database.
•
Clone operations. You may create a clone of a SQL Azure database into another
one using the
CREATE DATABASE
statement.
•
Log files. You can't access the database log files, nor can you create a log backup.
Objects
Certain objects available in SQL Server aren't available in SQL Azure. If your applications depend heavily
on these features, you may have difficulty using SQL Azure, and you may need to rethink your
application design to accommodate these limitations. The following are some of the limitations that
currently apply to SQL Azure:
•
CLR. The .NET CLR isn't available in SQL Azure. As a result, you can't create
extended stored procedures or extended functions.
•
System functions.
SQL Azure supports many system functions, including
Aggregate functions and Ranking functions. However, SQL Azure doesn't support
RowSet functions, including these:
•
OPENQUERY
•
OPENXML
OPENROWSET
•
OPENDATASOURCE
•
•
System stored procedures
. Only a small subset of system stored procedures are
available in SQL Azure, in the following categories:
•
Catalog stored procedures
•
Database engine stored procedures
•
Security stored procedures
•
System tables
. None of the system tables are available.
•
System views
. A subset of system views is available; you can access some of them
from the master database and others from user databases. The following are some
of the system views available (for a complete list, refer to the online MSDN library
for SQL Azure):
•
sys.sql_logins
