In this lesson, I'll show you how SQL databases are used in web application scenarios, we'll look at the fundamentals of SQL database design, and then review the configuration options for building a SQL database in the Azure Cloud. SQL, or SQL, stands for Structured Query Language. Azure supports the ability to create databases in the cloud for use by web applications. A common scenario for hosting a web application in Microsoft Azure is to deploy a web application. Web applications can be hosted in Azure and a product called an application service plan. When developers create and deploy web applications to the Azure Cloud, they need corresponding databases in order to store the information that is collected by the application. In this diagram, you can see clients using web browsers or smartphones are connecting to a web application running in Microsoft Azure over the internet. This web application server would connect to a database server in order to save and retrieve data that's being used by the application. In this lesson, we're gonna review how to create these databases in Microsoft Azure and how to manage them. A SQL database is constructed of a design of tables. You can see here a simple database diagram that shows an application that might track orders for customers. The application that requires this could be used for something like order entry or e-commerce applications. This design is done by developers who are building your application and they will use forms in order to collect data that fills these tables. Here is an example of what data looks like in a table. It's very common for developers to need to install SQL databases in the cloud when deploying their web applications, so let's take a look at how you would do that in the Azure portal. When managing SQL databases in the Azure portal, we first need to pull up the SQL databases menu item. We can do that by searching for SQL databases in the search box at the top of the screen. Let's try that now. You can see that the search options display an opportunity to view the SQL databases hosted in the cloud. Let's click that first. You can see in this scenario, we do not have any SQL databases deployed. Let's consider a scenario where we need to install a database to be used by a web application and let's review the options that we have for creating it right now. By clicking the Create button at the top of the screen, you see that we are presented with the basics of establishing a connection with Azure. The first thing that we must do when creating creating a database is select a resource group for the object to be created. All resources in Azure must belong in a single resource group, so let's create one now. We can create a new resource group by clicking the Create New button. Let's call it the Demo Resource Group. Now that the resource group has been created, we are prompted with an opportunity to select a database name. The database name is important because it will be used by software developers who are building the web application that will be dependent on this database. Let's create a database with a name like Order Entry. You can see the rules for creating database names displayed on the screen. All SQL databases must reside on some sort of database server. It is possible to host more than one SQL database on a server. Let's create a server to host our database now by clicking the Create New button. You can see that Azure is now presenting us with the options for establishing a server. We would like to create a name for this resource and you can see this must be unique across the entire Azure environment. All database servers can be reached by their name at the URL .database.windows.net. This helps developers who are building applications that will be hosted outside the Azure Cloud. It is possible for you to use the databases in the Azure subscription from applications that do not reside in Azure, such as an application hosted with another cloud provider or an application hosted in your on-premises data center. If this scenario exists, you can see that it will add a global URL to this SQL server that would allow it to be accessed from anywhere in the world. By default, the database will be limited to only be accessed by other Azure services, but it is possible to establish connection to these databases from outside the Azure Cloud. Let's come up with a unique name right now. You can see that I have successfully entered a name that would be unique, and now we are presented with an option to enter in the appropriate location for the server. Remember that when creating databases in an Azure subscription, we are allowed to create the resource anywhere in the world. It's always good practice to create resources close to the users that will use them. It is also recommended that you create your database in the same region where you plan on creating your web application product. You want your database and your web application server to reside in the same region, and in this case, we'll select East US. The next thing we are prompted with is what sort of authentication we would like to do for the database server itself. The connection credentials will need to be provided by web applications that want to access this database. You're presented with three options for allowing connections to this database server. The first option says, use only Azure Active Directory authentication. This means that all connections to the server will use a username and password. You could also establish local SQL usernames and passwords for accounts that would not reside in the Azure Active Directory. This is an older technology, but it is more flexible for developers because it does allow them to keep credentials the same regardless of the domain that you deployed the database into. It is also an option to only allow SQL authentication. This is a good practice when traditional SQL authentication is already being used by developers and you do not need the additional capability to authenticate with cloud-based accounts in the Azure Active Directory. Let's go ahead and select, use both SQL and Azure Active Directory authentication. You can see the last thing that we have to do is select which Azure account would be considered the SQL Server Administrator, and we are also being prompted to create a local SQL account, username and password, that will be another way to authenticate with the database. Let's do both of those things right now. Let's set the authentication option to use SQL authentication only and enter in a username and password that can be used by our developers and their applications to access the database. Now that acceptable passwords have been entered, we are presented with an Okay button. This allows us to save the configuration for our new SQL server. Now that the server has been created, we are presented with the approximate cost of building the database server and hosting it in the Azure Cloud. You can see that the current cost would be around $227 per month. In addition to configuring the database, the last option is to create the backup storage redundancy options. This allows you to determine what sort of protection you would like to provide for your database in terms of synchronizing or replicating this database to other regions within Azure across the globe. The more replication that you do, the more expensive your database service it will be. So let's set this to local redundancy to save money and click Review and Create. Stay tuned for the next lesson where I'll show you how to complete the configuration of the SQL database and then begin to manage your database in terms of taking database backups and modifying data in your database. Thanks for watching.
