Microsoft recently announced the general availability of its Azure SQL Data Sync solution, which allows users to synchronize data between Azure SQL Database and other SQL endpoints.
Built on Azure SQL Database, the SQL Data Sync allows synchronization of data unidirectionally as well as bidirectionally across multiple SQL databases and SQL Server instances.
“It enables hybrid SQL deployment and allows local data access from both Azure and on-premises application. It also allows you to deploy your data applications globally with a local copy of data in each region, and keep data synchronized across all the regions,” said Xiaochen Wu, Senior Program Manager, Azure SQL Database.
Microsoft reckons that Azure SQL Data Sync will reduce the impact of network latency and connection failure rate on applications, resulting in improved application response time and reliability.
The processing of Data Sync takes place in three steps— tracking data changes, synchronizing data, and resolving conflicts. The changes are tracked using insert, update, and delete triggers.
The technology has been available in preview for a while. Since its preview launch, Microsoft has updated SQL Data Sync with a number of improvements, including more reliable configuration workflow and more intuitive user experience. Users can now load database schema more efficiently using the new SQL Server Management Objects (SMO) library.
Also, Microsoft has made it GDPR compliant, with end-to-end synchronization workflow and data encryption.
The new offering will be more appealing to the customers moving to cloud and would like to move some of their application in Azure. It will be also useful for enterprises spanning multiple regions, having distributed applications.
