Random Online Utility: Omega.MSSQL for Azure

Two ROUs in one week?! I'm working overtime for you this week and I have another very cool (and free) Random Online Utility to share. This time, the tool is called Omega.MSSQL and it is from a company called Cerebrata (based in India).

I found this tool while looking for something that would let me browse the objects in my SQL Azure databases. As you may be aware, the current version of SQL Azure does not support the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio object browser. There are some "hacks" that allow you to use SSMS to query Azure, but it's far from the visual tool I wanted.

Omega.MSSQL fits the bill perfectly. Cerebrata has made this tool for a while (it seems) for standard use with SQL Server, but their recent update enables full compatibility with SQL Azure. The tool is web-based, so no installs required, and it is currently free of charge. You just visit the log-in page, input your SQL Azure instance details, and then browse your objects (assuming you've configured your SQL Azure firewall, too). You can browse most object types and you can even perform actions like creating and dropping tables.

Coincidentally, Steven Forte recently highlighted another tool you can use to browse and query objects in SQL Azure, called Gem Query. This tool is Windows-based, so it does require an install, and it offers much better querying tools than Omega.MSSQL. It does not, however, seem to offer as much help for performing schema operations (like drop table), so I still prefer Omega for that.

Both tools are free, though, and both are great help if you're starting to work more regularly with SQL Azure. And since OpenAccess ORM now supports Azure, I'm sure you've got even more incentive to start developing for the cloud!