Import CSV into SQL Azure Database using SSMS

Question

I have a set of large CSV files with many columns each that I need to import into a SQL Azure database. Ordinarily I would use the import wizard in SQL Server Management Studio. However, the wizard does not appear to be an option when connecting to SQL Azure in SSMS. Is that correct? And if so, what is the recommended tool for accomplishing this task? I'm looking for a tool that will infer from the data what the columns should be allowing me to override the data type as needed. Since I have a lot of columns in each of the files I'd like to avoid the tedious work of manually writing the SQL code to generate the tables.

Answer 1

This worked for me:

• Open SQL Server Management Studio
• Connect to Azure
• Right-click the database
• Go to Tasks > Import Data
• Select your flat file(s)
• Upload to Azure SQL and create an SSIS package based on this workflow

I sometimes get errors with CSV files this way, but either using an Excel file or inspecting the options of the CSV data columns in the Import Wizard should suffice.

Make sure you have appropriate permissions assigned to your user account.

They could've / should've made this easier, like a SFTP + insert or a GUI import directly to Azure SQL like in Hue.