title: MVC - Use remote SQL database
body: <p>How do you change an MVC3 web app to use a remote server for the data context? I tried changing the connection string the in web config (and restarted everything) but it still uses the local SQL database. </p>
  
  <p><strong>Edit:</strong> my connection string is below</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;add name="ApplicationServices" connectionString="Data Source=zzz.database.windows.net;Initial Catalog=SMS;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=xyz;Password=abc" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" /&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Edit 2: I tried commenting out everything inside the <code>&lt;connectionStrings&gt;</code> tag. The site still works. I'm a bit confused, is the connection set somewhere else?</p>