Database Reference
In-Depth Information
•
Azure services storage. The Azure services offer three distinct storage models that
are tailored to specific needs:
•
Table.
A named value-pair storage that allows you to store very large
amounts of data. This storage model includes automatic load balancing and
fail-over. It's called a table because you can store multiple values in each
row. However, this isn't a transactional storage mechanism; no indexing or
table joins are possible. Also, the columns defined in a table have storage
limitations. For example, a string data type is limited to 64KB.
•
Blobs.
An interface to store files, with a maximum limit of 50GB of storage for
each blob. You can easily access blobs using a straight HTTP request through
a Representational State Transfer (REST)) call.
•
Queue.
A highly available mechanism for storing messages for consumption
by other applications or services. A typical usage of queues is to send XML
messages. Certain limitations apply to queues, but you can access queues
through REST as well.
SQL Azure
. SQL Azure is a transactional database that provides familiar data
access through ADO.NET or other providers and gives you the ability to
manipulate the data using standard T-SQL statements. Databases in SQL Azure
are limited to either 1GB or 10GB, depending on the edition selected.
Table 1-1 summarizes the current characteristics of these data-storage options available in the
Azure platform.
•
Table 1-1.
Storage summary in Azure
Storage Mode
Maximum Size
Access
Format
Relational
Table
N/A
ADO.NET
REST
Rows and columns
No
Blob
50GB
REST
File
No
Queue
8KB*
REST
String
No
SQL Azure
1GB
10GB
ADO.NET
Rows and columns
Yes
* Recommended limit
SQL Azure Primer
As you've seen, SQL Azure is a relational database engine based on SQL Server technology. It supports
many of the features of SQL Server including tables, primary keys, stored procedures, views, and much
more. This section gives a brief primer to get you started using SQL Azure. You see how to register for
Azure, how to create a database and then an account, and how to log in.
