Microsoft Seeking Database Customers to Test Synchronizing SQL Server with the Cloud

Hard Hat Area: This is a free open source software development kit that gives agencies, or third parties with access to that data, the tools they need to host their data in Azure and provide programmatic interfaces to the data.

Another part of the program is called the Open Government Data Initiative which allows government agencies to host their data base material on the Azure cloud. The tools for developers to work with this are pare of the Azure Cloud operating system, in other words applications developed for the cloud. Government agencies that do not want to deal with the SDK can also send their data bases to be hosted. A number of data sets have already been hosted such as building permits for a simple example.

Here’s a picture of a portable cloud, and yes it is not as pretty as the real thing. The idea of the entire project is to have a SQL server data base hosted in the cloud and have it synchronize with the local copy.

Myself, I have been using a version of the cloud for a while called Microsoft Office Live – Small Business. It works well and I have used it for over a year now and plan to move more of my small physician office clients over. What I am using is the consumer end of the product as available, but MS Office is a platform and can be incorporated into an entire end solution too.

Microsoft to soon sell full range of Web software – I use and like Office Live for Small Business and Office Live Workspace

I do like the Office Connector as it makes the process of uploading a document to the Share Point Server very simple. By the way, all of this for me is free as I need the basics only, but for small monthly fees you can add services too. It’s a good deal and Outlook synchronizes on all my PCs with my desktop software. Good stuff and I have been very happy and host my simple website there as well. I have not had the time yet to use my CRM Cloud services yet.

Back on the topic, here’s the additional information on hosting SQL Server. BD

Microsoft is welcoming early adopters to Project Huron, part of its cloud-based push. The goal of Project Huron is to allow users to synchronize local copies of a database with a database in the cloud.

Microsoft is looking for customers interested in participating in an incubator project for online synchronization of databases.

Microsoft has dubbed the effort ‘Project Huron.’ Part of Microsoft’s growing focus on the cloud, Project Huron is aimed at making data synchronization easier within SQL Data Services.

From the Website:

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 justification 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.