As it was announced a few weeks ago by Microsoft, Office 365 will be able to connect to external LOB systems through BCS with the Service Update that is currently rolled out. I was eagerly awaiting to get my account updated and start testing it, also with the idea in my mind to write some articles about it.
Last week, my account was finally updated, however I didn’t have the time to test it and write about it, as I was away on a business trip, and I planned to do it all this weekend. Yesterday however, Christian Glessner (@cglessner), a German MVP, published an article that guides you through the basic steps to create a Windows Azure database (filled with the good old Northwind data), and connect it to your Office 365 account. Perfect timing, so I could actually concentrate on simply testing BCS this morning, and saved the time to write the article (no need for me to repeat what Christian has already excellently written down).
Within minutes (adding the Northwind data to the database was probably the step that took the longest), I had a working connection between my O365 acccount and my Windows Azure database!
