After attending a presentation on SQL Azure by Microsoft’s George Huey an interesting topic came to my mind in regards to the actual use for a cloud based database that has over 1400 incompatibilities with SQL Server: What’s the use for this since it is not a viable alternative to a production database.
I would say that it is an alternative to MS Access!!!
Let me explain that. I definitely see the use for it when you need to deploy a solution quickly for an event or conference and you need a reliable solution for the backend of your application that fits a tight budget and an even tighter schedule or even as George suggested for a startup that has no money for a datacenter hosted db environment.
in these situations deploying a 1GB database to host non-confidential information for under $10/mth seems a no-brainer. But I would not recommend this when HIPAA compliance is required for instance.
My thanks to George for a great presentation.