Why should you care?

Every business entity — Customer, Order, Product — becomes a table so the API can store and query it.

See it live — copy this example

Run in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) or Azure Data Studio.

USE DataVerse;
IF OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.Customers', N'U') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE dbo.Customers;
CREATE TABLE dbo.Customers (
    CustomerId INT IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
    FullName   NVARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
    Email      NVARCHAR(256) NOT NULL,
    CreatedAt  DATETIME2(0) NOT NULL
        CONSTRAINT DF_Customers_CreatedAt DEFAULT (SYSUTCDATETIME())
);
INSERT INTO dbo.Customers (FullName, Email)
VALUES (N'Priya Shah', N'priya@example.com');
SELECT * FROM dbo.Customers;

What happened?

• IDENTITY makes CustomerId auto-number.
• DEFAULT stamps CreatedAt in UTC.
• One INSERT then SELECT proves the table works.

Practice next

1. Run the script in your database.
2. Expand Tables in Object Explorer and refresh.
3. Insert a second customer with a different email.
4. Add Phone NVARCHAR(20) NULL and insert with a phone.
5. Try inserting NULL FullName and read the error.

Remember

Tables store rows of related columns. IDENTITY + PRIMARY KEY is a common key pattern. INSERT then SELECT verifies the design.

DataVerse customer master

The shop API creates dbo.Customers on day one of the schema.

Outcome: Registration writes one row per shopper.