In anticipation of this year’s Professional Developer Conference, Microsoft has released a feature-complete version of SQL Azure. CTP 2 includes everything that the final version of the SQL Azure is expected to have and is currently deployed on one of Microsoft’s production clusters. This will enable users to rollover their test environments into the production version when it becomes available.
Developers using August’s CTP will not have a direct upgrade path. Moreover, they will only have until December to make alternate plans. Microsoft expects to decommission the older servers by the end of the year.
The new version includes many customer-driven features including:
- Firewall Support: Developers can limit access to their databases based on IP address.
- Bulk Insert Support: Developers can greatly increase load time using Bulk Insert techniques, including .NET’s SqlBulkCopy class.
- Additional T-SQL Support: Rather than list everything that SQL Azure supports, we instead direct you to the list of unsupported T-SQL features.
In addition SQL Azure Team Blog, there is an updated Windows Azure Platform Training Kit that developers are encouraged to review.