How has the SQL Data Services (SDS) roadmap evolved since the announcement at PDC 2008?
Following a CTP announcement of SDS at PDC 2008 there has been a large quantity of valuable customer feedback through forums, blogs and posts. Based on the customer needs and requirements, our SDS roadmap is now focused on empowering the Microsoft Azure Platform, by delivering a traditional relational database service in the cloud, supporting Transact-SQL (T-SQL) over TDS (Tabular Data Stream) protocol. With this evolution, SDS will provide customers with the ability to use existing investments in T-SQL development and use a relational data model in the cloud. In addition to this, SDS provides a stronger value proposition through savings in the cost of development by enabling the ability to use existing applications/tools and knowledge, while benefitting from the new distributed, cloud based functionality of SDS.