How to export databases for Business Central

Many countries have legal requirements that customers must be able to access their data files. Additionally, companies must provide a way for customers to download these files locally to import them into a local database.

From the Business Central administration center, you can export databases for Business Central online environments as (.bacpac) files to an Azure storage container. Before exporting, you need to set up the Azure storage account container where the (.bacpac) file will be stored.

Setting Up the Azure Storage Account

1. Create an Azure Storage Account:

• In the Azure portal, select?All services.
• Enter?Storage Accounts?in the search bar and select it.
• Click?Add?on the Storage Accounts window.
• Choose the subscription for the storage account. Under the Resource group field, select?Create new?and enter a name for your new resource group.
• Enter a unique name for your storage account (3-24 characters, lowercase letters, and numbers only).
• Select a location for your storage account or use the default location.
• Leave the following fields set to their default values:
• Deployment model:
• Resource Manager Performance:
• Standard Account kind:
• StorageV2 (general purpose v2) Replication:
• Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) Access tier:
• Hot Click?Review + Create?to review your settings and then select?Create.

2. Generate a Shared Access Signature (SAS):

• On the Azure storage account, select?Shared access signature?in the navigation pane.
• In the Allowed services section, select?Blob?and clear the other options.
• In the Allowed resource types section, select?Container?and?Object, and clear the other options.
• In the Allowed permissions section, select?Read,?Write,?Delete, and?Create, and clear the other options.
• Set a start and end date and time for the SAS (minimum expiration window of six hours from the initiation of the export).
• In the Allowed protocols section, select?HTTPS only. Click?Generate SAS and connection string. Copy the Blob service SAS URL.

3. Exporting the Database

4. Initiate the Export: In the Business Central administration center,

• Go to the Environments list page and select the desired environment.
• On the action ribbon of the environment details, select?Database?and then?Create Database Export.
• In the File Name field, specify a name for the export file or leave the default value.
• In the SAS URI field, enter the Blob service SAS URL you copied earlier.
• In the Container Name field, enter the name of the container in the Azure storage account. If the container does not exist, it will be created.

5. Complete the Export: The (.bacpac) file will be generated and exported to the specified Azure storage account. This process may take several minutes to hours depending on the database size. You can close the browser window during the export. Once complete, access the export file in the Azure storage account container.

6. Auditing and History

• All database export activities are logged for auditing purposes. To view the history, select?Database?and then?View Export History?on the action ribbon of the environment details page.

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