New Tools Ease Movement of Databases to Microsoft's SQL Azure
Microsoft's SQL Server database server platform and its cloud-based SQL Azure may share many core technologies but they are not one and the same. As a result, moving data and apps from one to the other is not all that simple.
Two companies this week set out to address that during the annual PASS Summit taking place in Seattle. Attunity and CA Technologies introduced tools targeted at simplifying the process of moving data from on-premises databases to SQL Azure.
Attunity Replicate loads data from SQL Server, Oracle and IBM's DB2 databases to SQL Azure and does so without requiring major development efforts, claimed Itamar Ankorion, Attunity's VP of business development and corporate strategy.
"The whole idea is to facilitate the adoption of SQL Azure, allow organizations and ISVs to benefit from cloud environments and the promise of SQL Server in the cloud," Ankorion said. "One of the main challenges that customers have is how do they get their data into the cloud. Today, it requires some development effort, which naturally creates a barrier to adoption, more risk for people, more investment, with our tools, it's a click away."
It does so by using Microsoft's SQL Server Integration Services, which provides data integration and transformation, and Attunity's change data capture (CDC) technology, designed to efficiently process and replicate data as it changes. "We wanted to basically provide software that would allow you to drag a source and drag a target, click, replicate and go," Ankorion said.
For its part, CA rolled out a new version of its popular ERwin data modeling tool for SQL Azure. CA ERwin Data Modeler for SQL Azure lets customers integrate their in-house databases with SQL Azure.
"CA ERwin Data Modeler for Microsoft SQL Azure provides visibility into data assets and the complex relationships between them, enabling customers to remain in constant control of their database architectures even as they move to public, private and hybrid IT environments," said Mike Crest, CA's general manager for data management, in a statement.
CA's tool provides a common interface for combining data assets from both premises and cloud-based databases. Customers can use the same modeling procedure to maintain their SQL Azure databases.
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on October 13, 2011