Cloud database guinea pigs sought by Microsoft

Must be willing to share

A Microsoft incubator project for online synchronization of databases is preparing to welcome early adopters.

Organizers of Project Huron, part of Microsoft's stable of emerging cloud-based services, have asked Microsoft customers to help test the synchronization and solidify a first release. The curious should send an email here, Microsoft said.

"We are looking for are any customers that are looking to share SQL Server or SQL Compact databases via the cloud and have an existing project that would warrant this functionality," the Huron team blogged.

Project Huron has been set up to synchronize Microsoft's SQL Server and SQL Compact used on the desktop and devices via the company's Azure Services Platform.

According to Microsoft, the long-term plan for Huron is to allow simplified sharing of relational stores like Office Access, SQL Express, SQL Server Compact, and SQL Server, data sharing between businesses, and push workgroup databases to field workers and mobile users.

Huron is part of SQL Data Services (SDS) that will comprise Azure. Other elements include the Azure operating system - a version of Windows Server, .NET Services for development using .NET and web-services frameworks and APIs, and various Live Services.

The idea of Huron is to use SDS as a data hub in the sky and to synchronize endpoints using the Microsoft Sync Framework. ®