December 20, 2024

Apple macOS and the TDS endpoint

Part 4 about Mac Mini M4 and Power Platform, this time is about SQL and Dataverse.
Dataverse offers a way to access its data using SQL statements (read-only) by enabling the TDS endpoint.
The documentation shows how to use it with SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) but this application is only for Windows.

The main reason I use the TDS endpoint is to run some queries (like a count or strange joins) and they are usually faster using SQL. For XrmToolBox there is SQL 4 CDS by Mark Carrington but for now I don't want to launch the virtual machine.

Lucky for us Microsoft has a cross-platform product with similar functionalities as SSMS:
Azure Data Studio
Just download the macOS Apple Silicon version and we are ready to go:

When connecting to the TDS endpoint the procedure requires to specify the database name, it's usually the same prefix of the server:

After the connection we can launch SQL queries and eventually save them in a Notebook:
I am sure SSMS offers different functionalities but for what I need Azure Data Studio is enough.

Before finishing, let's back a moment to SQL 4 CDS, did you know it is also available as Azure Data Studio plugin?
You can download the VSIX from the GitHub repository releases and it can be installed inside the Mac version of Azure Data Studio.
It requires .NET SDK 8 (for PCF development we installed .NET 9 SDK) so install it first (link) otherwise the extension will not work.

After the extension is installed we can create a new connection using SQL 4 CDS and run other commands like UPDATE:

It's nice to have this tool available also inside Azure Data Studio and I don't need to launch the virtual machine!

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