SQL Server Data Services, Part Uno! by Gus Collazo

SQL Server Data Services is Microsoft's exciting addition to their Software Plus Services strategy! It's an on-demand data storage and retrieval service that will offer customers data access from anywhere on the Web. A few good points about this new service (as of the time of this writing):

• Microsoft has placed no limits on the amount of data that can be stored!
• It will support the XML standards-based Representation State Transfer (REST) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) interfaces
• Microsoft will provide VB.Net and C# client libraries to access the service.
• Microsoft will support Language-Integrated Query (LINQ)-based data access to the service.
• Microsoft will store the data on their own servers and will provide geo-redundant data for disaster recovery. You'll always have access to your data!
• All data transfer between the client and the service will be secured via Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

The above is just a quick summary I gleaned from http://www.sqlmag.com/ (98881), but you can learn more by visiting http://www.microsoft.com/sql/dataservices/default.mspx as well. The service is in beta now, but you can signup now for it and start exploring the service!

Stay tuned for more updates as I dive into this latest offering from Microsoft.