A Quick Look At The Azure Query Editor

An interesting preview feature has surfaced recently in the Azure Portal itself: the ability to query Azure SQL databases. For me, this feature is significant for a simple reason: I no longer need SQL Server Management Studio to perform simple database tasks. Let's do a quick tour of the current capabilities of this feature.

How to get started

You first must have an account with the Azure platform (https://portal.azure.com) and you must have created a new SQL Database service. Once you have a database created, you can select it from the SQL Database icon from within the portal; from here, a panel showing multiple configuration options will become visible and you will see the Query Editor as one of them.

Query Editor Features

In the current preview, the Query Editor offers the following capabilities (see A, B, C and D on the image provided):

* Open/Save a query from/on the local computer [A]

* View existing database objects (tables, views and stored procedures) [B]

* Open a query tab to run a single SQL command [C]

* Open a table editor (you can add, delete,update records) [D]

Multiple Queries

As you can see from the previous image, it is possible to open multiple "active" queries on separate tabs. This allows you to run multiple SQL commands on your database, and keep a results window.

However, keep in mind that at this point the Query Editor only shows the result of the last query executed.

Table Editor

Last but not least, you can use the Query Editor if you would like to perform in-place edits without using SQL commands. To use this feature, select the table you would like to edit, and click on Edit Data from the menu.

A new tab will become visible, showing you the records stored in that table; you will be able to perform inline edits (insert, update, delete) using the graphical interface.

Conclusion

While still relatively simple, the build-in Query Editor provides the much needed capability to run SQL commands directly from the portal, which is a very useful feature for those of us on the road, or in need to run a few queries from computers that do not have SQL Server Management Studio.