Azure Table Storage

Last Revised On: 14/10/2009

Update Overview

Version 3.0 of the SQL CRUD Application Wizard includes the ability to connect to an Azure Storage account and generate a CRUD application against an Azure Table. After specifying storage account credentials and an endpoint, the Wizard displays a list of tables found within the account. Once a table is selected, then the Wizard provides a list of "columns" found in the table. Since Azure Tables do not map directly to tables found in a SQL database, there are a couple differences between a CRUD application generated for SQL / SQL Azure and Azure Table Storage.

The largest difference is that entities within an Azure Table can have any number of fields. Entities of the same table do not necessarily have the same set of fields. When fields are selected in the CRUD Wizard interface the Wizard will generate an application that targets only records which contain all of the selected fields. The Wizard is ideally suited for Azure Tables which enforce a schema.

An additional difference is highlighted when you consider paging and sorting. Table Service does not support sorting of entities. The CRUD Wizard therefore disables the sorting option when generating an application for Azure Table Storage. Paging is also different due to the fact that Table Service does not provide a way to access a range of entities, rather it supports a forward only navigation of records returned from a query. When paging is selected and the number of records per page is entered, the generated application will display that number of records per page as expected. The difference is that it will only include a 'next' button and a 'return to start' button for record navigation.

Note: You must have a SQL Azure account with a storage project that contains at least one table. Please sign in here to create an account.