SQL Azure - synchronous replication to second database?

Question

I am looking at Azure's SQL database service as a potential solution for a project. One of the requirements is HA between data centers (i.e., the database must have a standby running at a separate site that is ready to take load should the master fail, and is immediately consistent with the master). It appears that SQL Azure can only replicate data between sites asynchronously, using either sync groups or a periodic export/import process.

My question is this - is there any way to do this I am missing? Is it, for instance, possible to configure a normal SQL Server instance (running on IAAS) at the standby, and somehow introduce a synchronously replicated master-slave relationship with the SQL Azure database running in the primary data center?

thanks,

Scott.

Answer 1

SQL Database (aka SQL Azure) is triple-replicated within a data center. To the best of my knowledge, it is not geo-replicated between data centers however.

Would using SQL Server (on a IaaS VM) with database mirroring be an option? See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj870960.aspx.

Answer 2

A recent development - Microsoft's Active-Geo Replication support for SQL Database lets users create up to four readable, secondary databases in any Azure region. If you've got active-geo replication enabled, then all transactions are committed to the database in your primary region, where they are continuously replicated to databases in other regions.

This feature is is currently only supported for Premium Tier databases.