FrankieA's questions

Recently, trying to import a BACPAC to an Azure SQL Server using SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio) has been failing with the following error:

Failed to connect to server ___.database.windows.net. (Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo) Login failed for user 'NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON'. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 18456)

The steps I have used to import the BACPAC are as follows:

1. Connect to server in SSMS using my AzureAD credentials.
2. Right click on Databases and choose "Import Data-tier application"
3. Select my BACPAC file and click next.
4. Leave default settings for S2 Azure DB and click next.
5. Error appears before it gets to the Summary page.

The above steps have worked great for the last 2 years, and just recently stopped working. I've tried on 2 different computers, different networks, and different versions of SSMS (that have worked find in the past) but they all still fail.

Using a regular SQL server password login (non AzureAD account) imports the BACPAC successfully, as does importing via Azure Portal.

Any idea what could be causing this issue?

I am working on a smartphone application that will require a backend web service - but I have absolutely clueless to how much it will cost.

Web Service will handle:
- login of users
- cataloging of our user base
- holding minimal profile information for users (the only binary data is a display picture which will be < 20k each)
- performing some very minor calculation/algorithm before return results
- All the above will be communicated to server from a smartphone (iPhone/BlackBerry/Android)

Bandwidth Requirements:
- We want to handle up to 10k users throughout the day.
- I predict 10k * 50 HTTP requests a day = 500,000 requests a day * 30 = 15 million requests a month

Space Requirements: - Data will be in SQL database.
- I predict 1MB/user * 10k = 10GB + overhead. In other words - space is not a big issue.

Software Requirements: (unless someone knows an alternative)
- Windows Server 2008 + IIS
- MSFT SQL Server

Note: This is 100% new to me, so please hit me with all you got. Do I need Windows Server or are there alternative? Is it better to get multiple cheap servers to distribute load? Will Amazon S3 work for me? How about Windows Azure?

EDIT note: At this point in time - I'm am more concerned with COST and how that cost will scale. So if you provide a service recommendation, could you help ballpark to how much these requirements would cost?

Thank you!!