Cloud Computing is very HOT today and many organizations have started providing these services. So I thought to share some knowhow with SQL Group about the same. May be you’ll get an opportunity to work in this environment soon.

The Windows Azure Platform is an Internet-scale cloud computing and services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers.

The Windows Azure Platform includes the foundation layer of Windows Azure as well as a set of developer services which can be used individually or together.

The Windows Azure Platform comprises the following developer services:

1. Windows Azure
2. Windows Azure platform AppFabric
3. SQL Azure 

SQL Azure is the relational database service on the Windows Azure Platform.

Microsoft SQL Azure Database is a cloud-based relational database platform built on SQL Server technologies. By using SQL Azure, you can easily provision and deploy relational database solutions to the cloud, and take advantage of a distributed data center that provides enterprise-class availability, scalability, and security with the benefits of built-in data protection and self-healing.

Benefits of using SQL Azure

Relational Data Model

SQL Azure will seem very familiar to developers and administrators because data is stored in SQL Azure just like it is stored in SQL Server, by using Transact-SQL. Conceptually similar to an on-premise instance of SQL Server, a SQL Azure server is logical group of databases that acts as an authorization boundary.

Within each SQL Azure server, you can create multiple databases that have tables, views, stored procedures, indices, and other familiar database objects.

High Availability

SQL Azure is built on proven Windows Server and SQL Server technologies, and is flexible enough to cope with any variations in usage and load. The service replicates multiple redundant copies of your data to multiple physical servers to maintain data availability and business continuity. In the case of a hardware failure, SQL Azure provides automatic failover to optimize availability for your application.

Manageability

SQL Azure offers the scale and functionality of an enterprise data center without the administrative overheads that are associated with on-premise instances of SQL Server. This self-managing capability enables organizations to provision data services for applications throughout the enterprise without adding to the support burden of the central IT department or distracting technology-savvy employees from their core tasks in order to maintain a departmental database application.

With SQL Azure, you can provision your data storage in minutes. This reduces the initial costs of data services by enabling you to provision only what you need. When your needs change, you can easily extend your cloud-based data storage to meet those needs.

Scalability

A key advantage of SQL Azure is the ease with which you can scale your solution. After partitioning your data, the service scales as your data grows. A pay-as-you-grow pricing model makes sure that you only pay for the storage that you use, so that you can also scale down the service when you do not need it.

Familiar Development Model

When developers create on-premise applications that use SQL Server, they use client libraries that use the tabular data stream (TDS) protocol to communicate between client and server. SQL Azure provides the same TDS interface as SQL Server so that you can use the same tools and libraries to build client applications for data that is stored in SQL Azure.

Similarities and Differences

Similar to an instance of SQL Server on your premises, SQL Azure exposes a tabular data stream (TDS) interface for Transact-SQL-based database access. This allows your database applications to use SQL Azure in the same way that they use SQL Server. Because SQL Azure is a service, administration in SQL Azure is slightly different.

Because Microsoft handles all of the physical administration, there are some differences between SQL Azure and an on-premise instance of SQL Server in terms of administration, provisioning, Transact-SQL support, programming model, and features.

Logical Administration vs. Physical Administration

Database administration in SQL Azure differs most from SQL Server in terms of physical administration. SQL Azure automatically replicates all data to provide high availably. SQL Azure also manages load balancing and, in case of a server failure, transparent fail-over.

To provide this level of physical administration, you cannot control the physical resources of SQL Azure. For example, you cannot specify the physical hard drive or file group where a database or index will reside. Because the computer file system is not accessible and all data is automatically replicated, SQL Server backup and restore commands are not applicable to SQL Azure.

Transact-SQL Support

Many SQL Server Transact-SQL statements have parameters that allow you to specify file groups or physical file paths. These types of parameters are not supported in SQL Azure because they have dependencies on the physical configuration. In such cases, the command is considered partially supported.

Features and Types

SQL Azure does not support all of the features and data types found in SQL Server. Analysis Services, Replication, Reporting Services, and Service Broker are not currently provided as services on the Windows Azure Platform.

SQL Azure supports many SQL Server 2008 data types; it does not support data types that have been deprecated from SQL Server 2008.

Guidelines and Limitations (SQL Azure Database)

1. The SQL Azure service is only available with TCP port 1433. To access a SQL Azure database from your computer, ensure that your firewall allows outgoing TCP communication on TCP port 1433.
2. Before you can connect to the SQL Azure server for the first time, you must use the SQL Azure portal to configure the SQL Azure firewall. You will need to create a firewall setting that enables connection attempts from your computer or Windows Azure.

For more details visit: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee336279.aspx

Regards,

Sarabpreet Singh