What is new in Microsoft SQL Server Azure?
Everything. Microsoft SQL Azure is the new cloud computing online services for Microsoft SQL Server launching in November 09 in the V1 level.
It was amazing to see that you are actually able to connect to an online SQL server cloud using the normal SQL management studio connecting to the database engine using the FQDN. The SQL Gateway which is manageable by an online web interface and includes all security and firewall settings for the SQL Cloud, the redirector layer which load balance T-SQL traffic and the underlying SQL Fabric which serves the cloud, is fully transparent to the SQL management studio and system administrators can manage all futures of SQL as they do in the normal in-house setups.
The V1 version is targeted for non mission critical SQL databases for middle and large organizations, in the first quarter of 2010 the V2 release will target the mission critical SQL needs and some features like snapshot and restore to the specific point of time, and using multiple database connections using USE <db> which is not available at this moment, will be added.
It is possible to use this service based on “on demand” resource needs, meaning at an specific period of time the database load can be balanced on virtually unlimited resources where the gateway billing mechanism is aware of this short recourse peak time.
There are rumors that the SQL cloud computing technology will also be available for third party organizations in the near future.