SQL Azure

Part of the Windows Azure platform, SQL Azure provides a cloud-based relational database service (called SQL Azure Database) hosted in Microsoft’s data centers. SQL Azure Database offers many of the features of the on-premises SQL Server database management system, including support for the T-SQL query language, which will help organizations leverage existing developer skills when migrating on-premises applications to the cloud or creating hybrid applications that are deployed in both places.

SQL Azure receives service release updates approximately quarterly. The latest update, released in Dec. 2011, increased the maximum database size from 50GB to 150GB and improved the service’s Management Portal with a new user interface, better monitoring, and more ways to work with schemas and queries. It also added SQL Azure Federation to automate database sharding, a process that creates a single logical database from multiple physical databases. Federation helps scale out databases (and expand them beyond Azure’s 150GB limit) and eliminate the need for developers to write their own sharding code.