Microsoft has released SQL Server 2014 earlier this month and now have released very long but interesting white paper on Windows Azure Blog Storage Services. SQL Server Data Files in Windows Azure feature is available in all editions of SQL Server 2014. This feature is enabled by default and at free of cost. This feature makes SQL Server 2014 hybrid cloud database as it provides native support for database files stored as Windows Azure Blobs. If you notice this is a big leap forward where data stored locally as well as on a cloud are accessed by SQL Server 2014 at the same time. You can also host SQL Server Instance in Azure cloud and it can also use the Windows Azure Blobs just like on-premises SQL Server.
Let me give you another example, if you have a situation that you have stored your database files in the cloud as well as backup on Windows Azure Cloud. Now if you want to restore your backup you do not have to bring that back to on-premises before restoring it. You can just restore your data directly from Windows Azure Storage to your SQL Server 2014 instance in a Virtual Machine. It will remove the necessity to do lots of data movement between cloud and on-premises servers.
This white paper discusses exactly the same feature very much in detailed. This white paper has over 116 pages and the size of the word file is 2.5 MB. However, after a long time I have found a Whitepaper which explains concepts from the beginning and walks users step by step with the examples. The appendix file to this Whitepaper contains all the necessary code as well as very interesting reference material. I think I am going to spend my entire weekend reading and learning from this Whitepaper.
Image included in this blog post is courtesy to the same white paper and it explains the story of entire white paper in just one image. Brilliant.
Download the white paper SQL Server 2014 and Windows Azure Blob Storage Service: Better Together.
Reference: Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)
