Download from Azure

From the Overview screen of the database copy you made, click the "Export" button. This will start the process of exporting your database as a standard BACPAC file. You will not be able to download this directly, instead you need an Azure Storage Account to save it to and then you can download it from there.

On the next screen select the storage account in Azure that you want to save the BACPAC file to.

If you already have a container that you use for these types of things you can use the existing container and skip this step.

If not, we recommend creating a new container called "backups" or something similar and keeping the access level Private. This will prevent somebody outside your organization from downloading the file if they somehow manage to get a link to it.

Back on the main Export Database screen, enter your server admin login and password. This is likely the username and password listed in your web.ConnectionStrings.config file. Then click the "OK" button.

To see the progress of the export, go to your Azure SQL Server (not the database, but the server) and click the "Import/Export history" link:

Now you just wait for the export to complete. Once that is done you can go to your storage account and download the file. Find your storage account from the search bar and then once that screen comes up you can drill down to the storage container.

From the storage account screen click the "Containers" link.

Then select the container you chose when you did the export process above. Don't use the checkbox, click on the actual name of the container to go into it.

Click on the name of the backup file that was created (it will be the copied database name and the timestamp of when you started the backup). Once again, click on the name and not the checkbox.

Finally you can click the "Download" button to start the download. This will likely take quite a bit of time so keep the window open and be patient.

Once the download has completed, you can click the "Delete" button just to the right of the "Download" button to delete the backup from Azure.

Encrypting the Database

Before sending your database anywhere you will want to encrypt it. Why? Because bad things happen. If you mail us a drive containing the database, it might get lost or stolen. If you send us a link to download the database, you might type in the wrong e-mail address and send it who knows where. So, it's safer to encrypt it just in case.

There is a simple application that will help you do this, and it runs on both Windows and Mac. It's called AES Crypt and can be downloaded here. If you are on windows, click the "AES Crypt - GUI (Windows 64-bit)" link to download.

After it downloads, open the zip file and run "AESCrypt.msi" to install it.

There is no stand-alone application to run, it works simply by showing a new option in your contextual menu in the file explorer. So go to your file explorer and find the bacpac file you downloaded. Right click on it. If you are running a newer version of Windows you will then need to click on "Show more options".

Then select "AES Encrypt". You should see a dialog like this.

Enter a password (please don't use "password" or "rock"), confirm it and click "OK".

Encryption isn't fast, so this might take a while. But once it is done you should see a new file right next to the original with the "AES" icon (and extension if have those visible). This file is now encrypted and can be shared.

Sending the Database

There are a few ways you can send us your database depending on what you have available.

1. Share the file via some cloud storage solution like One Drive and e-mail Spark the download link.
2. Buy a USB drive to copy the file on and mail it to Spark.
3. Hand deliver it to us. We might even take you to lunch.

It really comes down to what you have available and what you feel comfortable with. Just remember to clean up when you are done. So if you send us a download link, make sure you delete the file after we have downloaded it.

If you go the route of a USB drive, make sure you don't go too cheap. Many of the cheaper USB drives have decent read speed, but terrible write speed. If your database is 60GB, you might end up having to wait a few hours for it to copy. Are those few hours really worth saving $4?

Finally, you also need to give the Spark team the decryption password. Do NOT send the decryption password the same way you send the encrypted file. It does no good to encrypt the file and mail a USB drive to us with a note inside that contains the decryption password. Use a different method. If you mail the drive, then e-mail us the key. If you e-mail us a link to download the file, snail-mail us the decryption password. Basically, just make sure that if somebody intercepts the encrypted file, they don't also get the decryption password at the same time.