Get started with the Azure SQL EF Core integrations

Azure SQL is a family of relational database management systems that run in the Azure cloud. The database systems are Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products that enable database administrators to implement highly scalable and available databases without maintaining complex infrastructures themselves. The Aspire Azure SQL Server Hosting integration provides methods to create a new Azure Database server and databases from code in your Aspire AppHost project. The client integration uses Entity Framework Core (EF Core) to provide a robust, type-safe way to interact with your Azure SQL databases using .NET objects.

In this introduction, you'll see how to install and use the Aspire Azure SQL integrations in a simple configuration. If you already have this knowledge, see Azure SQL Hosting integration for full reference details.

Set up hosting integration

To begin, install the Aspire Azure SQL Hosting integration in your Aspire AppHost project. This integration allows you to create and manage Azure SQL Database instances from your Aspire hosting projects:

dotnet add package Aspire.Hosting.Azure.Sql

Next, in the AppHost project, create instances of Azure SQL server and database resources, then pass the database to the consuming client projects:

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
  
var azureSql = builder.AddAzureSqlServer("azuresql")
                      .AddDatabase("database");
  
var exampleProject = builder.AddProject<Projects.ExampleProject>("apiservice")
                            .WaitFor(azureSql)
                            .WithReference(azureSql);

Use the integration in client projects

Now that the hosting integration is ready, the next step is to install and configure the client integration in any projects that need to use it.

Set up client projects

In each of these consuming client projects, install the Aspire SQL Server Entity Framework Core client integration:

dotnet add package Aspire.Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer

In the Program.cs file of your client-consuming project, call the AddSqlServerDbContext extension method on any IHostApplicationBuilder to register a DbContext for use via the dependency injection container. The method takes a connection name parameter.

builder.AddSqlServerDbContext<ExampleDbContext>(connectionName: "database");

Use injected Azure SQL properties

In the AppHost, when you used the WithReference method to pass an Azure SQL database resource to a consuming client project, Aspire injects several configuration properties that you can use in the consuming project.

Aspire exposes each property as an environment variable named [RESOURCE]_[PROPERTY]. For instance, the Uri property of a resource called database becomes DATABASE_URI.

Use the GetValue() method to obtain these environment variables in consuming projects:

string sqlHost = builder.Configuration.GetValue<string>("DATABASE_HOST");
string sqlPort = builder.Configuration.GetValue<string>("DATABASE_PORT");
string sqlJDBCConnectionString = builder.Configuration.GetValue<string>("DATABASE_JDBCCONNECTIONSTRING");

Use Azure SQL resources in client code

Now that you've added DbContext to the builder in the consuming project, you can use the Azure SQL database to get and store data. Get the DbContext instance using dependency injection. For example, to retrieve your context object from an example service define it as a constructor parameter and ensure the ExampleService class is registered with the dependency injection container:

public class ExampleService(ExampleDbContext context)
{
    // Use database context...
}

Having obtained the context, you can work with the Azure SQL database using Entity Framework Core as you would in any other C# application.

Next steps

Now that you have an Aspire app with Azure SQL integrations up and running, you can use the following reference documents to learn how to configure and interact with the Azure SQL resources: