SQL Azure added federations in Dec 2011, which is our implementation of the sharding application pattern

For information about what’s coming from SQL Azure, go to about 38:00 in this presentation from TechEd. http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2011/DBI313

There are at least three ways to enable e-mail for your Azure applications:

1.Using a custom on-premise Email Forwarder Service.

2. Using Email Server’s Web Services APIs

3.Using a third party SMTP Service

All are described in more depth here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2010/10/08/adoption-program-insights-sending-emails-from-windows-azure-part-1-of-2.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0

Please help us understand what scenarios (if any) these patterns don’t address for your applications.

At PDC 2010 Microsoft announced the Extra Small Instance, which will be priced at $0.05 per compute hour in order to make the process of development, testing and trial easier. This will make it affordable for developers interested in running smaller applications on the platform. A beta of this role will be available before the end of 2010.

Please let us know if this addresses your needs for a more cost effective Azure offering.