mca blog

Roger Jennings has posted a link to a very interesting video that features several key SSDS team members offering their explanation of MSFT's 'cloud' data service.

i find this interesting as the video reveals several of the key concepts behind the notion of SSDS:

• SSDS isn’t a hosted instance of SQL Server in the cloud, it’s an Internet-based data utility powered by SQL Server
• the SSDS 'container' is the 'target' of data consistency and data query
• SSDS will be available via SSIS, SSRS, Microsoft Sync, Analysis Services, etc.

while the integration of SSDS into other MSFT products and services is major, that's not the part that interests me the most. what interests me is the approach MSFT is taking to provide cloud-based data storage, query, and retrieval. the way MSFT is headed, i see them building a very robust and reliable storage system. already today, storage is much more than 'tables and rows' and i'm anxious to see how they implement query and retrieval of binary objects as well as the standard XML document storage objects.

finally, looks like PDC will be a big 'coming-out' for SSDS w/ an open beta to follow close behind. and i suspect 2009 will see the release of the first production-ready version of SSDS.

should be an interesting year!