Hi all,

Does some know if it is possible to make a database connection with Office365, Sharepoint (Designer) and SQL Azure database ?

Thanks in advanced 

You cannot do this via SharePoint Designer today. What you can do is to create a Silverlight or javaScript client application that calls out to SQL Azure.

In the near future, we are designing a way to make these connections using the base SharePoint technology called BCS (Business Connectivity Services) wherethen you could develop a service to service to SQL Azure.

You can connect your Office 365 based lists with Azure using 3rd party solutions as the Cloud Connector.

See the video here for more:

So far as I know, Azure SQL can be managed be the current on-premise SQL client driver - or?

Your best bet as far as making a database connection through Azure/SQL/SharePoint Designer would be to read through the developer's guides.

I've gathered some development links for Office 365 for you to use as reference materials.

<www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx

<msdn.microsoft.com/.../Office365TrainingCourse>

<msdn.microsoft.com/.../hh147180.aspx>

<msdn.microsoft.com/.../ee335711.aspx>

<blogs.msdn.com/.../a-lap-around-sharepoint-2010-sandboxed-solutions-resource-quotas.aspx>

<msdn.microsoft.com/.../sharepoint>

<msdn.microsoft.com/.../hh147177.aspx>

Hi all thanks for the reply's

I also did some more research and i found that it is currently not possible to create external content type's in SharePoint Online (from Microsoft Office 365) for the SQL server data source type.

Not for Azure or any other mssql database sources.

Therefore you need to setup a secure store service configuration for your SQL Azure connection

and that is currently not possible in SharePoint Online as far i know. The central administration of SharePoint Online is limited compared to the normal SharePoint 2010 central administrator.

I found 2 articles that confirmed this. See www.zimmergren.net/.../06.aspx by Tobias Zimmergren and community.office365.com/.../10445.aspx

I tried another way around by using data sources. That worked but i am very limited with this option

for example i cannot use those list to sync it with my contacts or to convert the office item type to contact.

I hope i can be proved wrong or else i hope that Microsoft's expands the central administration to make this possible in the near feature as Mark mentioned.

Ps. the third party option that Frank mentioned could work but for what i want to achieve is that no option. And @ Eric most of the links don't work. 

Did you have anymore questions regarding this issue Donnovan Wesenhagen?