How to get “Microsoft Contoso BI Demo Dataset for Retail Industry” into Macbook with M1/Apple Chip

4 min readSep 17, 2021

Now that you're here, it's quite obvious that you're looking for a solution.

In the end, I would like to tell you what wouldn’t work (or at least didn’t work for me as of ‘Thu Sep 16, 2021, 11:57:38 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)’.

There are 4 Prerequisites and one small process to achieve this.

Docker
Azure Data Studio
Unarchiver
Contoso Demo Dataset for Retail Industry

1. Docker

Why Docker?

MSSQL would require a windows environment and since we are on the Mac platform we need a solution to provide us with a Windows OS environment. Note: There are other solutions apart from Docker, but I find this to be the fastest and the easiest

How to download Docker?

Download it from the official site here: Docker Desktop

2. Azure Data Studio

Why Azure Data Studio?

Azure Data Studio provides us an easy interface to interact with the underneath MSSQL environment to import our Contoso dataset into MSSQL

How to download Docker?

Download it from the official Microsoft website: here

3. Unarchiver

Why Unarchiver?

As the Dataset we get to download is in .exe format and the default MacBook’archive utility app couldn’t extract the files from the .exe file.

How to download?

Download it from the official Unarchiver website: here

4. Contoso Demo Dataset for Retail Industry

How to download?

Go to the link https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=18279 and click download

2. Select the Backup file i.e ContosoBIdemoBAK.exe and click Next to download

The Final Process;

Now that you have acquired all the prerequisites above 4, there are only a few steps that need to be done as part of the final process

Step 1: Download Azure SQL Edge Docker Image: link

Open the terminal and run the following command, this will download the docker image to your machine.

docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/azure-sql-edge

Step 2: Create and Run the Azure SQL Edge Docker Image:

The below command will create a

Container named mssql
User named sa
Password MyP@ssWord

docker run -e "ACCEPT_EULA=1" -e "MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=MyP@ssWord" -e "MSSQL_PID=Developer" -e "MSSQL_USER=SA" -p 1433:1433 -d --name=mssql mcr.microsoft.com/azure-sql-edge

Step 4: Extract Contoso Dataset

Use an Unarchiver to extract the ContosoBIdemoBAK.exe file

Step 5: Copy the Contoso Dataset into the Docker Container

docker cp ./path_to_the_extracted_data_set container_id:/var/opt/mssql/data/

Now here you require container id, here’s how you can find it

The below command gives the short container id

docker ps

The below command gives the full container id

$ docker inspect -f '{{.Id}}' SHORT_CONTAINER_ID

Step 6: Connect Azure Data Studio to the MSSQL Server

Open Azure Data Studio > Click on New Connection

In the Connection Details

Server: 127.0.0.1

Authentication type: Sql Login

Username: sa

Password: MyP@ssWord

Step 7: Import the Dataset

Click on Restore

Choose Backup file
Directly enter the path below

/var/opt/mssql/data/ContosoBIdemoBAK/ContosoRetailDW.bak

Choose the “…” to choose the .bak file
Click restore

In the end, you should see the Restored Dataset something like this

I would like to tell you what wouldn't work (or at least didn't work for me as of ‘Thu Sep 16, 2021, 11:57:38 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)’.

Getting the MSSQL Server image from the Docker Hub: link

This doesn't work because the Docker image here is not compatible with the Mac M1/Silicon Chip