Deploying Microsoft Databases Linked to a SQL Azure Database to Users
without SQL Server Installed on their Machine
Written by: Luke Chung,
President
 Introduction
to Linking Microsoft Access Databases to SQL Server on Azure
In my previous paper, I described how to
link a Microsoft Access database
to a SQL Server database hosted on Microsoft SQL Azure. By using
Microsoft's cloud computing Azure platform, your can easily host an
enterprise quality SQL Server database with high levels of availability,
bandwidth, redundancy, and support. SQL Azure databases range from 1 to 50
GB, and you pay for what you use starting at $10 per month.
 In
that paper, I showed how you needed to have SQL Server Management Studio
(SSMS) for SQL Server 2008 R2 on your machine to manage a SQL Azure database and create the data source
network file (DSN file) to connect to the SQL Azure database. With this
file, your Access database can link (or import) data from your SQL Azure
database.
So how can you deploy your database to users who don't
have SQL Server 2008 installed on their machines?
Deploying the SQL Server 2008 ODBC Driver
Deploying a Microsoft Access database using a SQL Azure database is
similar to deploying any Access database using a SQL Server back end
database. For our purposes, this can include Access Jet databases linked to
SQL Azure tables directly (MDB or ACCDB formats) or your VBA code that references the SQL Server tables via ADO.
The users of
your applications do not need to have SQL Server installed on their machines,
just the ODBC driver. Once that's installed, they can use your database. If
they need to link to the tables from their own database, they simply need to
have the DSN File you created along with the password for the database.
How Do I Install the SQL Server 2008 ODBC Driver?
The file you need to run on each machine is the SQL Server client
installation program:
sqlncli.msi
You have the right to deploy this if you have SQL Server. This is located in
your SQL Server setup program under these folders:
- 32 bit: \Enterprise\1033_ENU_LP\x86\Setup\x86
- 64 bit: \Enterprise\1033_ENU_LP\x64\Setup\x64
Run the program and follow the instructions:
Initial screen of the SQL Server 2008 R2 Native Client Setup
For more details, read this MSDN article about
Installing SQL Server Native Client. This article also includes silent
installation instructions to install the ODBC driver without the user
interface prompting your users.
Alternatively, you can download and distribute the
SQL Server 2008 R2 Feature Pack
Make Sure Your Users' IP Addresses are Listed on SQL Azure
For security reasons, SQL Azure (like standard SQL Server) lets
you specify the IP addresses to allow direct interaction with the database.
This is required with SQL Azure.
You'll need to specify this in SQL Azure's administration tools if your
users are using IP addresses different from yours.
Not sure what your IP address is? Use the
WhatsMyIP.org site to
get your current IP address.
Conclusion
Hope this helps you create Microsoft Access databases with SQL Server
more easily. Good luck and I hope to learn what you're doing or would
like to do with
Access and Azure.
 Blog about it with me
here.
 Additional Resources
for Microsoft Azure and SQL Azure
FMS Technical Papers
 Microsoft
Azure, SQL Azure, and Access in Action
Microsoft Resources
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