Database Reference
In-Depth Information
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Seasonal applications.
Developing web sites or services that have a tendency to
grow and contract over time provides potential savings opportunities because
cloud computing uses a pay-as-you-use model.
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Short life span.
Development of prototypes or applications with short lifespans is
also attractive, such as event-registration sites. You can also build development
and test environments for remote teams.
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Split storage.
Certain applications need to keep storage in a safe location but may
not require frequent access, or may require high availability. Designing or
modifying an application so that the data is stored locally and in SQL Azure (or
other data-storage formats) may make sense.
Small companies and ISVs.
Smaller companies that can't afford large and
complex infrastructure to start their business can take advantage of the financial
and inherent infrastructure benefits of Microsoft Azure. Independent software
vendors (ISVs) can also benefit from cloud computing. For example, an ISV can
use SQL Azure to store application logs or centralize reporting features from
multiple disconnected locations.
See Chapter 2 for more information about design patterns and application scenarios that use the
Azure platform.
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About Geographic Locations
In order to provide high availability, Microsoft established regional data-center operations that allow
customers to select geographically dispersed services. When you create your Azure servers, you need to
specify which geographic location the servers should be provisioned in. This feature is called
Windows
Azure geolocation
.
Initially, it may be tempting to choose your company's geographic location for improved
performance. However, if the availability of your Azure services is more important than response time,
you may need to pick another location. When selecting a geographic location, make sure to consider the
following:
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Performance.
When your data is closer to your users, network latency may be
noticeably lower, improving customer experience.
•
Disaster recovery.
If ensuring the availability of your cloud platform is important,
you may want to disperse your services and data across multiple regions.
Legal factors.
Consider the type of information that will be stored in the cloud,
and ensure that you aren't bound by specific regulations and mandates that may
prevent you from selecting remote geographic locations.
At the time of this writing, you can select from one of the following geographic locations, each of
which is supported by a regional data center:
•
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Anywhere Asia
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Anywhere Europe
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Anywhere US
