Azure SQL database update V12 preview boosts performance, compatibility: Good news for Microsoft Dynamics ERP cloud plans?

As we've been reporting over the last few months, Microsoft is settling into a faster release cadence for its products, including three major release in the last quarter of 2014 - GP 2015, NAV 2015, and CRM 2015. For that rate of change to continue, not only will the MBS product teams be working in more agile ways, but they will be looking to other parts of Microsoft to rapidly deliver improvements that can benefit the Dynamics ERP and CRM products in 2015 and beyond.

In Microsoft Dynamics AX ‘7' will use SQL Azure for cloud deployments we reported on plans for the next major release of AX in 2015, including the plan to begin using Azure SQL database as a back end in Azure-based deployments. And even before AX 7 launches, Azure SQL should become a deployment option for Dynamics NAV 2015 running in Azure.

This month, Microsoft Azure's Product Marketing Director Vibhor Kapoor, announced updates to Azure SQL database, along with other Azure services, that push the technology forward and bringing it nearly to parity with the traditional SQL Server engine. And the vendor is furthering its enterprise offerings with new and enhanced Azure services across Storage, Azure SQL Database, and Azure Active Directory.

V12 Preview Now Available

A briefing on the latest SQL Database update highlighted the latest additions to Azure SQL Database update V12 (preview), which provides "nearly complete compatibility with the Microsoft SQL Server engine". ...