Project "Huron" - Early Adopter Program

I wanted to give an update on our Project "Huron".  For those new to it, this is an incubation project that we have been working on for some time to provide database "friction free" (this is a one fo those Microsoft terms that basically means simple to setup :-)) synchronization capabilities to the Cloud (SQL Data Service) via a hosted Sync Service sitting within the Azure data centers.  The goal is to remove the typical complexities (configuration, scalability, security, etc) involved with sharing database information between local databases such as SQL Server and SQL Compact and provide simple UI tools for configuration and sync components developers can embed in existing applications.

One unfortunate scoping that we have decided to make is to temporarily hold off on direct support of Microsoft Access for v1.  Although we realize that there are a LOT of customers that are looking to support this, based on our current resourcing this has been an unfortunate scoping that we have decided to take.  The primarily jusitification was that we already had an existing SQL Server and SQL Compact provider from Sync Framework that we are able to easily re-use which greatly simplified our efforts.  It is our hope that some of these Access customers will consider initially linking their Access forms to a SQL Server database to then synchronize via the cloud in the short term until we can provide the full Access support.

The good news is that in the short term we are still planning to offer direct support SQL Server and SQL Compact (desktop and devices).  In fact we are very close to the point that we can start taking on some early adopter to verify some of our assumptioms and help us solidify the first release.  What we are looking for are any customers that are looking to share SQL Server or SQL Compact databases via the cloud and have an existing project that would warrant this functionality.  If you are interested please contact us using the "Email" link in the left sidebar and I can provide additional details.

With that I will leave you with a few screen mock-ups we are working with from our Huron Management Studio Dev UI.

Liam