{
  "id": 7526288,
  "title": "I Connected Claude to 20 Years of Azure SQL Data with a Custom MCP Server. Here's How.",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/15/i-connected-claude-to-20-years-of-azure-sql-data-with-a-custom-mcp",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-15T10:08:03.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/mhk_sameera/i-connected-claude-to-20-years-of-azure-sql-data-with-a-custom-mcp-server-heres-how-53ba"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A client sought a solution to enable their managers to ask Claude questions and receive reports from 20 years of Azure SQL Database data, without using dashboards, BI tools, or SQL training. The database contained hundreds of tables, including legacy and half-finished migration tables, making it challenging for a language model like Claude to process. The solution involved creating a custom MCP (Model Context Protocol) server on the client's VPS, which whitelisted tables accessible to Claude, ensuring the language model could only see and query the relevant tables for each department. The MCP server utilized Node.js, the official SDK, and the Zod library to define table whitelists, schema descriptions, and read-only queries. With just one shared key and a small audience, the architecture provided a secure and efficient way for managers to interact with the data using natural language questions.",
  "summary": "A client came to me with a request that sounded simple: \"We have 20 years of data in our database. We want our managers to ask Claude questions and get reports. Marketing, HR, R&D, Production, Procurement, Sales — all of them.\" No dashboards, no BI tool, no SQL training. Just: type a question, get an answer from the actual data. The database is Azure SQL. It's been growing since the mid-2000s. It…",
  "key_points": [
    "Client needed Claude to access 20 years of Azure SQL Database data.",
    "Custom MCP server created on client's VPS to whitelist tables for Claude.",
    "MCP server uses Node.js, SDK, and Zod to define secure data access."
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}