While at MIX09 this year, I had the chance to talk with Microsoft's Patric McElroy. We start out talking about how Microsoft data services map into cloud computing. While we discuss how existing technologies and techniques are migrated to Microsoft Azure, we also talk about the new functionality that comes with being hosted in the cloud: e.g., self-service provisioning, High Availability, Disaster Recovery, and scaling data up (performance wise) to meet high data demands.

I then ask Patric if there's cloud technologies and techniques that they're pulling back to on-premise software. There's some interesting tooling and provisioning tasks he tells us about. We also discuss how the role of the DBA may or may not be impacted in the Azure world. We wrap-up by talking about ADO.NET Data Services (or "Project Astoria," as I remember it), primarily how the RESTful entity mapping framework fits into Azure.

Disclosure: Microsoft covered Tamp;E for MIX09 and sponsored this video.