Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
The ability to disassociate machines from data and services is very powerful in itself. Microsoft's Azure
environment allows multiple business scenarios to flourish, including these:
•
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.
•
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.
•
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 Database (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 Database 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.
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:
•
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:
•
East Asia
•
East US
•
North Central US
•
North Europe
•
South Central US
