New features in coming SQL Azure updates

In one of my previous blogs I already told about my first experiences with SQL Azure. 2 weeks after the launch of SQL Azure the first Service Updates was coming available. At the MIX 10 conference, the Microsoft SQL Azure team announced some new features in the upcoming releases.

Support for MARS
In SU2 (April) Support for Multiple Active Row Sets. Mutilpe Active Row Sets (MARS)  allows you to execute multiple batches in a single connection.

50GB Databases
In SU3 (June) 50 Gb Database will be available.  If you would like to become an early adopter of this new size option before SU3 is generally available, send an email to EngageSA@microsoft.com and it will auto-reply with instructions to fill out a survey. Fill the survey out to nominate your application that requires greater than 10 Gb of storage.

Support for Spatial Data
In SU3 (June) Support for spatial data. This feature will support the Geography and Geometry types as well as query support in T-SQL. This is a nice feature which opens the Windows Azure Platform to support spatial and location aware applications.

SQL Azure Labs
A new site called SQL Azure labs is launched. SQL Azure Labs provides a place where you can access incubations and early preview bits for products and enhancements to SQL Azure. The goal is to gather feedback on the features you want to see in the product. All technologies on this site are for testing and are not ready for production use. Some of these features might not even make it into production – it’s all based upon the feedback of the SQL Azure community. Be aware that these features are actively being worked on, you should not use them against any production SQL Azure databases.

It is great to see that the development on SQL Azure is moving on. What will be the next feature in the upcoming Service Update (SU). If you have ideas you can submit them on: http://www.mygreatsqlazureidea.com/

First service update for SQL Azure Database is live.

Photo credit: Jakob Montrasio

The first Service update for SQL Azure is live. This update is coming 2 weeks after the general availability of SQL Azure. It contains some bug fixes but more important it contains some new features based on the feedback they got. I'm happy to see that the SQL Azure team is looking seriously to the provided feedback. In my previous blog: "My first experiences with SQL Azure, the SQL Server database in the cloud" I talked about my experience with SQL Azure. Some things for improvement are already implementend in the first service update for SQL Azure like:

• First dynamic views to monitor the health of a database, diagnose problems, and tune performance. It is not complete but the start is made.
• Ability to move between editions. You can now upgrade your database fro 1 Gb to 10 Gb. 10 Gb is still the maximum size, but I think this is a matter of time.
• The idle connection timeout is increased from 5 to 30 minutes. This is much better.
• Improved algorithm for terminating long running transactions. Import and export of larger date is possible with having to break down you data in smaller chunks.

All details about this first service update of SQL Azure can be read here.

The first service update within 2 weeks, is a really good start. I hope that the SQL Azure team can keep on delivering this kind of service updates with this speed. I can't wait for the second service update.
Enjoy it.