Microsoft releases SQL Azure Database preview

Microsoft has released a free trial of its cloud-based relational database.

The community technology preview (CTP) of SQL Azure Database was made available Tuesday, along with a preview of an SQL Server driver for building PHP applications for the Azure platform.

The Azure Services Platform, first announced at a developer conference last year, is Microsoft's move into the rapidly growing cloud-computing market. As with all cloud platforms, the idea is to provide scalable, hosted services on a pay-per-use basis, running remotely in Microsoft's data centers.

(Credit: Microsoft)

SQL Azure Database, a key component of the platform, is a rival to Amazon.com's SimpleDB. Unlike that service, however, it is a relational database.

Other components of the Azure Services Platform include Windows Azure for running applications and storing data, .Net services for linking the applications to the distributed infrastructure, and Live services for linking Azure to Microsoft's Live web applications.

"With SQL Azure, developers building Web 2.0, ASP.Net and PHP applications can use familiar tools and data models to develop on a pay-as-you-grow, secure, scalable and highly available database service at minimal infrastructure cost," Microsoft senior program manager David Robinson wrote in a blog post Tuesday, adding that "there are really no comparable solutions available today."

SQL Azure's relational data model supports Microsoft and Sybase's proprietary extension to the SQL database language, Transact-SQL. Robinson said there is a high degree of compatibility with SQL Server, allowing for easy migration of business and Web applications to the cloud.

The free trial of SQL Azure Database will last until November, when the service is fully launched. There will be two editions, a Web Edition that stores up to 1GB of data for $9.99 per month, and a Business Edition that stores up to 10GB at $99.99 per month.

David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.

[BogusBasin]

As you can see from the graphic above, it is Microsoft's intention to lock you into their products. They aren't happy until they have control of everything. Don't get me wrong, other companies try to do it as well. It has been my experience with Microsoft that they will try to bleed you dry once they have you in their grasp.

Here is a new feature. Upgrade product A. Sorry, product B, C, D, E, F and G don't work quite right with product A. You will need to upgrade all of them as well. By the way, products embracing open standards from our competitors don't work well with some of our products either.

Where do you want to go today? Bankrupt.

Amen

[B-Ri]

yes but don't you think that if you are going to upgrade product A you would look into how that affects other products tied to it? Plus you don't have any reason to say that this would be the case anyway. As much as people complain about MS they are usually bending over backwards to allow backwards compatibility. Plus your idea about MS embracing open standards is kind of bogus. when they do embrace open source and standards people complain that MS is just trying to dominate and extinguish competition. Every tech company will "bleed you dry" if you buy into their ecosystem completely. Try to keep an open mind even when MS is involved. Much less stress that way.

[goodspeed8701]

As usual same stupid comment with same stupid mentality.

[BingItOn]

Do you evern read the article? Have you got anything logical to say?

1. @BogusBasin, What do you want to do today?
2. Write some stupid comment CNet

3. repeat 1.

[ppgreat]

With all that brushed metal in the graphic, at first glance I thought I was looking at iTunes. From 3 years ago.

[goodspeed8701]

booo!!! booo!!! try again dude.

[RompStar_420]

I really like and use Oracle, but this is good, Oracle will notice and they will have to adjust and keep on inventing, I would like to see better GUI support in Linux Oracle products than what they currently have.

[cosuna]

It's incredible how competition can change the landscape.

When nobody controls the platform (aka, the web, grid, cloud or whatever), its amazing how companies struggle to find better solutions. Long ago it was Oracle for Unix, DB2 for IBM Systems and SQL Server for Windows. If you opted for a mixed solution (say DB2 in Windows) you were in for a treat.

Now: to see Microsoft tout its software for PHP developers, it's like watching the Berlin wall fall...Live of course.

My only question is: how will Microsoft manage to have a "cloud" of relational replicated database instances, without the known problems of table locks and offering real-time synchronization. In my experience, its impossible to have more than 3 SQL Servers farms (clusters) in a geographically distributed way without incurring in mirroring delays (publish and subscribes just sucks) and without having transactional data collisions. But then again, they built SQL Server, they know how to do it. (Or did they? Sysbase comes to mind.)

[SIGHUP]

" If you opted for a mixed solution (say DB2 in Windows) you were in for a treat."

Why? I use them all the time.

[MadLyb]

This is an interesting concept, but I have to wonder how you could ever use this in transactional system with the obvious latencies that would be introduced from hopping all over the web.

[apple-pi]

I am aware of the fact that cloud-computing has become a way to general term these days, but I fail to see what this announcement by Microsoft has to do with cloud-computing as defined in this article:

'scalable, hosted services on a pay-per-use basis'.

In particular, I do not see how this offer competes with Amazon's SimpleDB.

The issue here is that of scale. Because relational databases have well-known limits when it comes to replication and synchronization (as correctly mentioned by cosuna), they don't scale to the same extent as non-relational implementations such as SimpleDB or Google's BigTable.

This makes SQL Azure offer little different from a simple SQL hosting solution from any provider, starting with godaddy.com.

However, aside the relational aspect of it, if this article is right, the limit of 10Gb is a killer. The good part is that you probably won't have any trouble storing 10Gb of data in a relational database. The bad part is that 10Gb does not count as 'scalable' by any reasonable standard drawn some time this century.

For example, if you want to be a new Flickr and store high-resolution images, assuming that each image is 10Mb, and that each user uploads 100 of those, you will have space for about 10 users...

I also do not see how the 'pay-per-use' part of the cloud-computing definition is applicable here. There are only two options available (1Gb or 10Gb), and if you have only 11Gb of data, you still have to pay for the 10Gb version...

Can this offer be useful to someone? Definitely (thought at this price, probably not to many). Does it have to do anything with cloud-computing (as defined in this article and elsewhere). No. As I do not believe that Microsoft wants to be in the low-margin business of providing hosting services, and based on their choice of the name that has 'Azure' in it, I do not see it as more than a cheap marketing trick. I will be glad to be proven wrong.

[gggg sssss]

microsoft embracing php - hell has indeed frozen over - or maybe this is php.net?

[RompStar_420]

lol I am just LOL'ing here