Visual Studio Data Tools Schema Compare does not work against Basic edition SQL Azure databases

Before you spend any time banging your head against the wall on this, please note that SQL Data Tools schema comparisons do not work against SQL Azure Basic databases. It will fail with some kind of timeout error. Do not be tempted to start messing with your default SQL timeouts. The default is already 60 seconds and thats plenty of time for almost everything you will encounter.

To change your edition (and there are many reasons to, not least point in time continuous backups and geo replication), you will need to go to the Scale tab on your database and select at least a Standard subscription type.

 

6 thoughts on “Visual Studio Data Tools Schema Compare does not work against Basic edition SQL Azure databases

  1. This is not true.

    I have a basic and a standard and VS works fine comparing these.

    I came across this as I was trying to compare a basic tier SQL Database against a standard SQL Database on ANOTHER PLAN and was experiencing this same issue but this post is misinformation here as although one system is basic and the other isn’t the fact remains that I can do it with other Azure SQL Databases where one is basic (or both) if they are on the same plan.

    This of course may be new since this post was written

    1. Hi David, only just noticed your comments. This article was written in Nov 2014 at which time this was a very real issue. I’m know they fixed this issue a long time ago. I am constantly coming across gremlins, but they usually get corrected pretty quickly by the Azure team, but my blog archive remains!!

  2. Ahh, the age old issue of date biased blog misinformation. I have the same concerns with my blog too. It is good that the vendors fix / update the issues and we need the posts to get them to do it.
    Stack Overflow is a nightmare for this – try finding information there relating to a problem that’s been happening for years and you are inundated with date biased misinformation. Worse still when you see old posts from people with the same issue you are having but with no responses or fixes when that’s what you were really looking for.

    The usefulness of the internet for software developers like us relies on forums and blogs and yet the older blogs posts often just get in the way.

    Thanks for sharing and updating. Always appreciated by me.

    Dave

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