http://blogs.msdn.com/b/msrich/I work in Premier Support for Developers, helping others to remove barriers to successful development on the Microsoft platform.en-USTelligent Evolution Platform Developer Build (Build: 5.6.50428.7875)http://blogs.msdn.com/b/msrich/archive/2012/12/13/managing-risk-on-windows-azure.aspx#10378310Sat, 15 Dec 2012 09:17:21 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:10378310Richard S Parker<p>Hi Daniel, thanks for your feedback. In this article, I focus specifically on platform risks. Perhaps the subject of a future blog post, safeguarding against application/user error is an altogether different subject - and not one that is specific to Windows Azure. </p> <p>In regards to your comment specifically on SQL Azure backup options, methods exist to copy databases (<a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ff951631.aspx">msdn.microsoft.com/.../ff951631.aspx</a>) and how to import/export them (<a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh335292.aspx">msdn.microsoft.com/.../hh335292.aspx</a>). You can also leverage SQL Data Sync to facilitate this process: <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2012/10/26/announcing-the-windows-azure-sql-data-sync-october-update.aspx">blogs.msdn.com/.../announcing-the-windows-azure-sql-data-sync-october-update.aspx</a>.</p> <p>Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment. </p> <div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=10378310" width="1" height="1">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/msrich/archive/2012/12/13/managing-risk-on-windows-azure.aspx#10377999Fri, 14 Dec 2012 01:27:03 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:10377999Daniel Smith<p>Other than hardware failures, the other major concern people have is protection against application/user error.</p> <p>Although Azure has the protection of geographic redundancy in the event of hardware failure, if you accidentally delete a record or table in your database, there are *no* backups to go back to...which scares the hell out of potential customers!</p> <p>I know backup/restore functionality is in the works, but it&#39;s quite surprising that such a critical feature is still missing from Azure. &nbsp;Any news on when this is going to be available?</p> <div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=10377999" width="1" height="1">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/msrich/archive/2012/03/31/quantifying-and-avoiding-risk-on-the-windows-azure-platform.aspx#10290925Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:51:24 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:10290925Richard S Parker<p>Hi Rinat. The issue of data corruption is an altogether different problem: do you refer to corruption of data by a failure of a storage resource, or by a bug or misconfiguration in your app for instance? Do you mean blob storage or SQL Azure? </p> <p>While both carry risks, it is appropriate to first quantify the risk factors once you have determined what the risk actually is. This will determine the scope of work you have to carry out to bring the risk within a known level of tolerance.</p> <p>Perhaps I will cover this in a separate blog post!</p> <p>Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.</p> <div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=10290925" width="1" height="1">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/msrich/archive/2012/03/31/quantifying-and-avoiding-risk-on-the-windows-azure-platform.aspx#10290837Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:24:33 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:10290837Rinat Abdullin<p>How would you deal with risk of data corruption on windows Azure?</p> <div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=10290837" width="1" height="1">