SQL Pass Conference & Synchronization to SQL Azure

Yesterday was the first day of the SQL Server conference, SQL Pass, here in Seattle. It was a really exciting day for me because I had the opportunity to present our new synchronization capabilities to the cloud in the opening day keynote and in a subsequent session.

We introduced the first piece of Project “Huron”, that is a technology based on the Sync Framework enabling people to use Windows Azure as a central Data Hub for all information. To accomplish this, later this month we will make available for download an early preview of a tool that provides the ability to extend a SQL Server on-premises databases to the cloud. Once configured users can then easily extend data from the cloud to mobile users and remote offices.

Using this tool and with the help of one of our partners, Archetype, we showed how companies can easily extend their on-premises SQL Servers to SQL Azure using data synchronization, allowing the data stores to co-exist and interoperate seamlessly.

All of this can be setup using a wizard. Then from an automatically generated SQL Agent, the synchronization process is executed periodically to move the incremental changes between SQL Server and SQL Azure.

Here are a few screenshots of the tool:

SQL Azure Server Credentials

 Choose Tables to Sync

 

Sync Progress

 

Sync Complete

 Watch for more details over this month at the Professional Developer Conference and in this blog for other new capabilities we are providing to for integration to Windows Azure and SQL Azure.

 Liam Cavanagh