Programming Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012

But What Is SQL Azure?

The best way to think of SQL Azure is as a bank of SQL Server boxes that someone else is managing, and because someone else is managing those boxes, you have to abide by some important restrictions and requirements. For example:

• Every table must have a clustered index.

• The absolute largest database you can have is 150 GB (but Federations offer a work-around for bigger databases).

• There is no full-text search.

• While the XML data type is supported, there is no support for XML indexes, XML schemas, or schema collections.

• Only the SQL Server security authentication model is supported.

• There is no support for conventional SQL Server partitioning.

Note

More comprehensive inventories of SQL Azure restrictions, relative to the feature set ...