Windows SQL Azure

Microsoft® SQL Azure™ (formerly SQL Server Data Services and later SQL Services) Database is a cloud-based relational databaseservice built on Microsoft SQL Server® technologies. It provides a highly available, scalable, multi-tenant database service hosted by Microsoft in the cloud. SQL Azure Database helps to ease provisioning and deployment of multiple databases. Developers do not have to install, setup, patch or manage any software. High availability and fault tolerance is built-in and no physical administration is required. SQL Azure Database supports Transact-SQL (T-SQL). Customers can use existing knowledge in T-SQL development and a familiar relational data model for symmetry with existing on-premises databases. The maximum size of SQL Azure database currently is 50 GB.

Top features:
Relational Database Management Services (RDBMS)
• Create, access, and manipulate tables, views, indexes, roles, stored procedures, triggers, and functions
• Execute complex queries and joins across multiple tables
• Insert, Update, and Delete
• Constraints
• Transactions
• Temp tables
• Basic functions (aggregates, math, string, date/time)
• A subset of the existing SQL Server built-in stored procedures and system views
• Support for tracking billable metrics in real time and for historical analysis

Programmability
• Managed ADO.NET data access
• Native ODBC
• Support for PHP

Tools
• Provision logical servers and databases through the SQL Azure Database account portal
• SQL Server Management Studio: an integrated environment with graphics tools for accessing and configuring SQL Server and SQL
Azure databases: 32-bit | 64 bit • Project Houston web-based database management.
• Deployment Support for running SQL configuration scripts via SQLCMD