For those legacy SQL Server 2008/R2 applications that remain critical, some form of high availability or disaster recovery protection will be required to preserve business continuity.

A comparison of SQL Server's throughput performance on Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) gives the edge to Microsoft's cloud.

Microsoft recently published a new version of its service-level agreement (SLA) for Azure SQL Database, adding uptime perks for organizations that use the 'Business Critical' tier.