Over the last few months I have had the opportunity to ramp up significantly on SQL Azure. In fact I will be the co-author of Pro SQL Azure, published by Apress. This is going to be a book on how to best leverage SQL Azure, both from a technology and design standpoint. Talking about design, one of the things I realized is that understanding the key limitations and boundary parameters of Azure in general, and more specifically SQL Azure, will play an important role in making sounds design decisions that both meet reasonable performance requirements and minimize the costs associated with running a cloud computing solution.
The book touches on many design considerations including link encryption, pricing model, design patterns, and also some important performance techniques that need to be leveraged when developing in Azure, including Caching, Lazy Properties and more.
Finally I started working with Shards and how to implement them in Azure to ensure database scalability beyond the current size limitations. Implementing shards is not simple, and the book will address how to create a shard technology within your code to provide a scale-out mechanism for your SQL Azure databases.
As you can see, there are many factors to consider when designing a SQL Azure database. While we can think of SQL Azure as a cloud version of SQL Server, it is best to look at it as a new platform to make sure you don’t make any assumptions on how to best leverage it.
