Ever since the “new” SQL Azure went to beta, I have craved an automated way to set up an OData (Astoria) Service from my SQL Azure database. My perfect world would have been to have a checkbox next to each table in my database in the developer portal asking to “Restify” this table as a service. It always seemed kind of silly to have to build a web project, create an Entity Framework model of my SQL Azure database, build a WCF Data Services (OData) service on top of that, and then deploy it to a web host or Windows Azure. (This service seems overkill for Windows Azure.) In addition to all of that extra work, in theory it would not be the most efficient solution since I am introducing a new server to the mix.

At Mix this week and also on the OData team blog, there is an announcement as how to do this very easily. You can go to the SQL Azure labs page and then click on the “OData Service for SQL Azure” tab and enter in your SQL Azure credentials and assign your security and you will be able to access your OData service via this method: https://odata.sqlazurelabs.com/OData.svc/v0.1/<serverName>/<databaseName>

I went in and gave it a try. In about 15 seconds I had a working OData feed, no need to build a new web site, build an EDM, build an OData svc, and deploy, it just made it for me automatically. Saved me a lot of time and the hassle (and cost) of deploying a new web site somewhere. Also, since this is all Azure, I would argue that it is more efficient to run this from Microsoft’s server’s than mine: less hops to the SQL Azure database. (At least that is my theory.)

To really give this a test drive, I opened up Excel 2010 and used SQL Server PowerPivot. I choose to import from “Data Feeds” and entered in the address for my service. I then imported the Customers, Orders, and Order Details tables and built a simple Pivot Table.

This is a great new feature!

If you are doing any work with Data Services and SQL Azure today, you need to investigate this new feature. Enjoy!