*SQL Azure Federations is coming soon!
SQL Azure VS Azure Tables is discussed best if the scenario is known! Though both of them “sound” similar – they are different in lot of aspects. The above info graphic is meant to delineate the difference between SQL Azure and Azure Table.
SQL Azure is a RDBMS solution whereas Azure Table is more of a NoSQL solution
SQL Azure has current limitation on Size i.e. 50 GB. Azure Table’s current limitation is secondary index is not supported.
SQL Azure supports SQL Azure reporting, SQL Azure Data sync, SQL Azure Federations (coming soon) out of the box. Also since it is a RDBMS – anyone familiar with SQL server will find the skills are very easily transferred. Also SQL Azure is at better at moving data to and fro from SQL server.
Apparently, Azure table is better at cost and scalability. But one concern is that data tends to get locked into Azure platform. By this I mean, if you use Azure Tables as your backend data store for your app and then someday you decide to move to different cloud platform then get ready for some work. So for more flexibility – opt for SQL Azure.
That’s it. It was just an introduction to “SQL Azure VS Azure Table storage”.
can you please take a moment and drop your comments/feedback – Thanks!
Update [2 jan 2012]
read http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2011/12/29/windows-azure-isv-blog-series-digital-folio.aspx for a case study
SQL Azure Federations is released and Max Size of a SQL Azure DB is now 150 GB.
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