For new scalable database applications:Use
Elastic Database features for Azure SQL Database. These features simplify building and managing an application that uses sharding. A .NET client library allows applications to define how data is mapped to shards and routes OLTP requests to appropriate databases. To reconfigure how data is distributed among shards (split and merge data from one shard to another), Elastic Database includes an Azure cloud service template that you can host in your own Azure subscription. If you are not familiar with Elastic Database tools, see the
Elastic Database tools getting started page and also the
documentation map.
For existing Federation applications:Migration
tools are available to help you move from Federations to Elastic Database applications, without performing any data movement. Please refer to this
documentation and
video for conceptual overview of Federation Migration. To manually detach federation members if you choose to migrate to stand-alone databases or use custom sharding approaches, we have added the
ALTER FEDERATION statement. Use this to detach individual federation members and work with them as stand-alone databases. This is an alternative to using the Federation Migration Utility.
What if my application is not yet ready to work without Federations?Follow these steps to create an Azure Support ticket that describes your situation:
- Go to Azure Portal.
- Click Help + support.
- Click New support request to create a new support ticket.
- For Request Type, select Quotas, and for Resource, select SQL databases.
- For Problem Category, select Quota or Core increase requests SQL database, and then click OK.
- In the Issue Details section, explain that you are a Federations customer who has an application that cannot currently work without USE FEDERATIONS functionality. Make sure that your contact information reflects the email and contact number where you want to be contacted.
- Click OK, and then click Create. A member of the Azure SQL Database product team will contact you. The person who contacts you will use this information and discuss your options.
What will happen if I take no action by October 2015? If you decide to take no action by October 2015, your Federation members will be auto-migrated to stand-alone databases. This will be an irreversible change, and you will be unable to use your existing application without making the required modifications to not use Federations.