Sync Team Blog

SQL Data Sync Preview December Service Update Is Now Live!

Shirley Wang [SQL] — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 03:20:00 GMT

Many of you have asked us when SQL Data Sync would be made available as part of the Windows Azure portal. Here is the good news: as of last weekend, SQL Data Sync is now live as part of the latest Windows Azure portal updates! Please check out Scott Guthrie's blog post for cool screenshots and step-by-step guide on how to create a new sync group using the new portal. Don't worry, your existing sync groups should still be accessible as well from the new portal :) We also made performance enhancements and bug fixes as part of this December service update.

As usual, please download the new SQL Data Sync agent from here and refer to this MSDN article for detail agent upgrade procedures.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!!

SQL Data Sync now available in the East and West US Data Centers!

Han, MSFT — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 15:03:23 GMT

We are excited to announce that we have just completed the deployment of SQL Data Sync into the East and West US data centers. Now, what does that mean to you? For those who intend to have their sync hubs in the East or West US, you can now provision the Sync Server in the respective regions thus allowing better sync performance for the particular sync groups.

Where in the world is SQL Data Sync?

Han, MSFT — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 09:06:47 GMT

During this past weekend, the new Windows Azure portal was officially released. Windows Azure subscribers are now directed to the new portal once they log in. Now, you may have noticed that SQL Data Sync is not in the new Windows Azure portal. Don't worry, SQL Data Sync still exists. We are working to port SQL Data Sync onto the new portal soon. In the mean time, SQL Data Sync users can continue to access SQL Data Sync via the old portal. To access the old portal, you will need to click on your user name on the top right corner. A context menu will appear. Click on the Previous portal link to redirect to the old portal (see below).

SQL Data Sync Preview October Service Update Is Now Live!

Han, MSFT — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 05:27:00 GMT

We have just released the October service update for SQL Data Sync Preview. In this update, users can now create multiple Sync Servers under a single Windows Azure subscription. With this feature, users intending to create multiple sync groups with sync group hubs in different regions will enjoy performance improvement in data synchronization by provisioning the corresponding Sync Server in the same region where the hub is.
Please download the new Agent from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=27693. For detail Agent upgrade procedures, please visit http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh667308.

The most recent Service Update for SQL Data Sync Preview is now live!

Han, MSFT — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 07:55:00 GMT

The most recent Service Update for SQL Data Sync Preview has been successfully released to production. In this release, there are 2 major improvements:

Enhance overall performance on initial provision and sync tasks
Enhance sync performance between on-premise databases and Windows Azure SQL databases

Please download the new Agent from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=27693

Lastest Client Agent Upgrade Notification

Han, MSFT — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 06:53:00 GMT

We plan to deploy the next Preview release (SU6) during the week of 8/13. For the release, there will be a new agent. The current client agent (SU5) will expire on 8/31/2012. Please upgrade your agent accordingly. For upgrade steps, please refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh667308

SQL Data Sync SU5 has been released!

Shirley Wang [SQL] — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 01:49:05 GMT

The latest Service Update 5 has just been released! SU5 delivers 2 major features designed to improve sync experience:

Sync support for Spatial data type
Ability to cancel an on-going sync process

SU5 also includes various fixes that provide better usage experience to our customers. To be consist with the rest of Windows Azure services, the new branded name is now SQL Data Sync.

You can download the latest local agent (v4.0.46.0) from the download page now.

Client Agent Upgrade Notification

Han, MSFT — Thu, 31 May 2012 08:03:00 GMT

A new service update (SU5) for SQL Data Sync will be deployed from June 6 US PST to June 7 US PST. A new Client Agent (version 4.0.46.0) will be available for download. All prior versions of the Client Agent will need to be upgraded. Please follow the steps below to upgrade the Client Agent.

Note: Please be aware that the default path for the Client Agent has been updated to

For 32-bit system,

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Data Sync

For 64 bit system,

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Data Sync

HOW TO UPGRADE: Validate the current version of the Agent that you have installed by following the Steps outlined here.

1) If the Client Agent isn’t open, please navigate to where you’ve installed the Client Agent,

The default path for a 32-bit system is

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Azure Data Sync

The default path for a 64-bit system is

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Azure Data Sync

2) Find and launch the application SqlAzureDataSyncAgent under the bin folder of the install path.

3) Click Upgrade Agent on your Client Agent window.

The Agent download page will appear. Please download and install the new agent.

Note: Please accept the default installation path

For 32-bit system,

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Data Sync

For 64 bit system,

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Data Sync

4) Once the upgrade process completes, close the Client Agent window.

Note: Please DO NOT delete the old agent installation path.

5) Open up Windows Explorer and navigate to the installation path indicated in Step 1.

6) Navigate to the data folder and find the AgentConfigData.xml file, e.g.

The default path on a 32-bit system is

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Azure Data Sync\data

The default path on a 64-bit system is

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Azure Data Sync\data

7) Copy the AgentConfigData.xml file.

8) Now, navigate to the data folder of the newly updated Agent, e.g.

The default path on a 32-bit system is

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Data Sync\data

The default path on a 64-bit system is

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Data Sync\data

9) Paste the AgentConfigData.xml file (step 7) into the data folder.

10) Now, restart Microsoft SQL Data Sync Windows Service on the system.

11) Next, run Microsoft SQL Data Sync Agent Preview.

12) Repeat step 1 – Step 11 for all of installed Agents in your environment.

SQL Azure Data Sync Service Update 4 Now Live!

Shirley Wang [SQL] — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:10:58 GMT

A new service update (SU4) for SQL Azure Data Sync service is now live! The most noteworthy new feature in SU4 is to allow users to edit existing sync groups to cater for schema changes. For step-by-step guidance on how to edit sync group for different kinds of schema changes, please refer to this post on Windows Azure blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2012/04/03/announcing-sql-azure-data-sync-preview-update.aspx

Allowing sync group update to cater for schema change was the feature with the highest voting on Data Sync feature voting site: http://www.mygreatwindowsazureidea.com/forums/44459-sql-azure-data-sync-feature-voting. Go there today to add or vote for your favorite Data Sync feature!

Cheers, Shirley

Info on Latest Data Sync Update

Mark Scurrell — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 01:29:00 GMT

We updated the service again at the end of January. Details about that update, a summary of changes in previous updates, as well as pointers to introductory videos can be found on this post to the Windows Azure blog - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2012/01/26/announcing-sql-azure-data-sync-preview-refresh.aspx

Regards, Mark

SQL Azure Data Sync Service Update

Mark Scurrell — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:32:00 GMT

Thanks for trying out our Preview version and sending us suggestions and feedback. We released a minor service update a few days ago based on the input we have received so far.

Some of the important changes in this update are:

Log-ins with either username@server or just username are accepted.
Column names with spaces are now supported.
Columns with a NewSequentialID constraint are converted to NewID for SQL Azure databases in the sync group.
Administrators and non-Administrators alike are able to install the Data Sync Agent.
A new version of the Data Sync Agent is now available on the Download Center, but if you already have the Preview version of the Data Sync Agent it will continue to work.

More SQL Azure Data Sync Webcasts on Channel 9

Mark Scurrell — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:21:41 GMT

A quick note to let you know that there are two more webcasts posted on Channel 9! We've also created a series on the Channel 9 web site so you can easily see all our available webcasts by using the following URL - http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/SQL-Azure-Data-Sync

The latest two webcasts are presented by Sudhesh. In one webcast Sudhesh digs into more detail about setting up sync between on-premises SQL Server and SQL Azure; in the other he focuses on sync'ing between SQL Azure databases. He goes into more detail than I did with my overview presentation.

Next up I'm going to do a webcast covering database provisioning - how Data Sync creates the database tables on the member databases, that you have the option to create the database tables yourself, and why that may be preferable.

Thanks, Mark

SQL Azure Data Sync Webcast Overview

Mark Scurrell — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 01:25:00 GMT

I've just posted the first in a series of webcasts for SQL Azure Data Sync over on Channel 9 here.

This first webcast provides a high-level overvew of the service. There's a couple of slides to introduce the service, but most of the webcast is a demo of the service.

Here's what we've got planned for future webcasts:

More detailed walkthroughs for syncing between local SQL Server and SQL Azure as well as between SQL Azure databases.
Scenarios where you can use Data Sync in conjunction with other services, such as Reporting Services.
Deep dives into specific areas, such as filtering, provisioning, security considerations, best practices, conflicts, and so on.

Feel free to leave a comment with topics you'd like to see us cover in future webcasts.

It's been a few weeks now since we released the Data Sync Preview. If you've been using the service then please provide us feedback using the feature voting site here. If you haven't tried out CTP3, then why not? :-)

Thanks, Mark

SQL Azure Data Sync Preview is now available

_RussH — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:35:00 GMT

We are pleased to announce the availability of SQL Azure Data Sync Preview. The Preview does not require a registration code and is available to anyone who has a SQL Azure account.

Improvements for the Preview release include:

Now hosted on the Windows Azure Management site - https://windows.azure.com.
A completely redesigned UI which makes performing common tasks easy, straight-forward and intuitive. The UI includes tutorials and Help within the UI.
Richer sync group configuration options:

Synchronization schedules from 5 minutes to 1 month, and anywhere in between.
Settable conflict resolution policy.
More granular definition of synchronization data sets - down to the table and row level.

Synchronization direction selectable for each database.

Unfortunately we have not been able to add the functionality to update sync group configuration when the schema changes. We intend to add this functionality in a future service release.

During the Preview, like the previous CTPs, using the service is free – though there are the normal Windows Azure and SQL Azure charges. Pricing for the production version has not yet been announced.

Data Sync Preview is not backwardly compatible with CTP2. If you are upgrading from CTP2 you need to remove all databases from the CTP2 sync groups, de-provision each database using deprov.exe, delete all CTP2 sync groups, and uninstall the CTP2 client agent.

The CTP2 site will be taken down in a few weeks. The sooner you upgrade the better.

For More Information

Check out the SQL Azure Data Sync post on Windows Azure blog.

Other sites you may want to check out

Windows Azure Management Portal.
Documentation for the Preview on the SQL Azure Data Sync TechNet wiki.
Client Agent Preview download.
Suggest or vote for new features on the Feature Voting Forum.
Ask questions using the SQL Azure MSDN Forum.
Log a bug at the SQL Server and SQL Azure Connect site.

Give it a try. We think you will like it.

Sync Framework Toolkit now available for download

Sreedhar Pelluru — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 01:58:00 GMT

The Sync Framework Toolkit extends the Sync Framework capabilities for building offline applications, making it easier to expose data for synchronization to applications running on any client platform. Sync Framework 2.1 required clients to be based on Windows. This toolkit allows other Microsoft platforms to be used for offline clients such as Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, and Windows Mobile; in addition, non-Microsoft platforms such as iPhone, Android, and Blackberry can be utilized as well as HTML.

The Sync Framework Toolkit provides all the features enabled by the Sync Framework 4.0 October 2010 CTP. We are releasing the toolkit as source code samples on MSDN with the source code utilizing Sync Framework 2.1. Source code provides the flexibility to customize or extend the capabilities we have provided to suit your specific requirements. The client-side source code in the package is released under the Apache 2.0 license and the server-side source code under the MS-LPL license.

The toolkit is available for download on MSDN at: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Sync-Framework-Toolkit-4dc10f0e. After you extract files from the package, you will see a Visual Studio solution in the SRC folder that let you build the toolkit on your computer.

We will keep the forum used for Sync Framework V4 CTP available for community discussion and community support.

SQL Azure Data Sync Update

liamca — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 19:33:00 GMT

It’s been a while since we announced SQL Azure Data Sync CTP2 and I wanted to provide an update on how CTP2 is progressing as well as an update on the service in general.

Late last year at PDC we announced CTP2 and started accepting registrations for access to the preview release. In mid-December we started providing access to the service and have continued to work our way through the registrations, adding more users. We recently made a few updates to the service as a direct result of feedback we’ve received; bug fixes and a number of usability enhancements.

We’ve seen huge interest in CTP2, so much so that we may not be able to give everyone who registered access to the preview. We are going to continue to process registrations throughout March, but for those of you that do not get access we will be releasing CTP3 this summer and will make that preview release open to everyone. Feel free to continue to register for CTP2 as that will allow us to email you as soon as CTP3 becomes available.

While on the subject of CTP3, here are some of the new features planned:

A new user interface integrated with the Windows Azure portal.
The ability to select a subset of columns to sync as well as to specify a filter so that only a subset of rows are synced.
The ability to make certain schema changes to the database being synced without having to re-initialize the sync group and re-sync the data.
Conflict resolution policy can be specified.
General usability enhancements.

CTP3 will be the last preview, before the final release later this year. We’ll announce the release dates on this blog when available.

Finally, here are some links that may be helpful:

To ask questions, report problems and provide feedback on SQL Azure Data Sync CTP2, use the SQL Azure forum: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/ssdsgetstarted/threads/
To submit new feature requests or vote on existing feature requests: http://www.mygreatwindowsazureidea.com/forums/44459-sql-azure-data-sync-feature-voting
To register for access to CTP2 and be notified about CTP3: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=204776&clcid=0x409

Best wishes, Mark

Synchronization Services for ADO .NET for Devices: Improving performance by skipping tables that don’t need synchronization

Sreedhar Pelluru — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 22:01:00 GMT

Performance is an important factor when you synchronize databases that consist of large number of tables. One way to improve performance is to identify tables that have no data to synchronize and exclude them from the synchronization process.

SqlCeClientProvider performs some processing for every table you request to be synchronized irrespective of whether the table has changed data or not. For a table full of changed data, this processing time is minimal compared to the time required for the actual synchronization. However, for a table with nothing to synchronize, the processing time is an overhead because it is the time that does not need to be spent. In fact, this overhead could affect performance of overall synchronization process significantly if there are large numbers of tables that have no changed data. Therefore, you should identify tables that have no data to synchronize and exclude them from the synchronization process to improve performance.

In a test we conducted in our labs, we used a database with 100 tables, out of which only 10 contained the changed data (200 rows inserted into each) that need to be synchronized. By skipping the other 90 tables during synchronization process, the overall synchronization time was reduced by 75-80%.

There are many ways to detect the changed tables on both server side and the client side. The following example code demonstrates one way to do this.

Construct sync agent's sync group with tables that have changed data:

private SyncAgent PrepareAgent(List<SyncTable> clientTables)

{

SyncGroup agentGroup = new SyncGroup("ChangedGroup");

SyncAgent changedAgent = new SyncAgent();

foreach (SyncTable table in clientTables)

{

table.SyncGroup = agentGroup;

changedAgent.Configuration.SyncTables.Add(table);

}

return changedAgent;

}

Get changed tables from local client database:

private List<SyncTable> GetChangedTablesOnClient()

{

// Initialize the list of tables to synchronize

List<SyncTable> tables = new List<SyncTable>();

// Open connection to the database

if (clientSyncProvider.Connection.State == System.Data.ConnectionState.Closed)

{

clientSyncProvider.Connection.Open();

}

// Prepare Command

SqlCeCommand command = new SqlCeCommand();

command.Connection = (SqlCeConnection)clientSyncProvider.Connection;

command.Parameters.Add(new SqlCeParameter("@LCSN", System.Data.SqlDbType.BigInt));

// Retreive changed tables

foreach (string tableName in this.clientTables.Keys)

{

// Build a command for this table

command.CommandText = GetQueryString("[" + tableName + "]");

// Execute the command

long lcsn = GetLastSyncCsn(command.Connection, tableName);

command.Parameters["@LCSN"].Value = lcsn;

int result = (int)command.ExecuteScalar();

// If the table contains changed data

if (result > 0)

{

// then add it to the synchronization list

tables.Add(this.clientTables[tableName]);

}

command.Dispose();

return tables;

}

private string GetQueryString(string tableName)

{

return String.Format(@"select count(*) from {0} Tbl where (((Tbl.__sysInsertTxBsn IS NOT NULL) AND ((Tbl.__sysInsertTxBsn NOT IN (select __sysTxBsn from __sysTxCommitSequence) AND Tbl.__sysInsertTxBsn > @LCSN) OR (exists(select __sysTxBsn from __sysTxCommitSequence where Tbl.__sysInsertTxBsn = __sysTxBsn AND __sysTxCsn > @LCSN))))

OR ((Tbl.__sysChangeTxBsn IS NOT NULL) AND ((Tbl.__sysChangeTxBsn NOT IN (select __sysTxBsn from __sysTxCommitSequence) AND Tbl.__sysChangeTxBsn > @LCSN) OR (exists(select __sysTxBsn from __sysTxCommitSequence where Tbl.__sysChangeTxBsn = __sysTxBsn AND __sysTxCsn > @LCSN)))))", tableName);

}

private long GetLastSyncCsn(SqlCeConnection connection, string tableName)

{

SqlCeCommand command = null;

SqlCeDataReader reader = null;

long num3;

long num = 0L;

try

{

command = new SqlCeCommand();

command.Connection = connection;

command.CommandText = string.Format("select SentAnchor from {0} Where TableName = @tablename", "__sysSyncArticles");

command.Parameters.AddWithValue("@tablename", tableName);

reader = command.ExecuteReader();

bool flag = true;

byte[] buffer = new byte[60];

while (reader.Read())

{

if (!reader.IsDBNull(0))

{

reader.GetBytes(0, 0L, buffer, 0, 8);

long num2 = BitConverter.ToInt64(buffer, 0);

if (flag)

{

num = num2;

}

flag = false;

if (num2 < num)

{

num = num2;

}

num3 = num;

}

finally

{

if (command != null)

{

command.Dispose();

}

if (reader != null)

{

reader.Dispose();

}

return num3;

}

Get the changed tables from the server side

// service method

public Collection<string> GetServerChanges(SyncGroupMetadata groupMetadata, SyncSession syncSession)

{

Collection<string> tables = new Collection<string>();

SyncContext changes = _serverSyncProvider.GetChanges(groupMetadata, syncSession);

if (changes.DataSet.Tables.Count > 0)

{

foreach (DataTable table in changes.DataSet.Tables)

{

if (table.Rows.Count > 0)

{

tables.Add(table.TableName);

}

return tables;

}

// client side methods to get the server changes by calling

// the service proxy method

private string[] GetServerChanges()

{

SyncGroupMetadata metaData = this.GetMetadata();

SyncSession session = new SyncSession();

session.ClientId = clientSyncProvider.ClientId;

return this.proxyExtension.GetServerChanges(metaData, session);

}

private SyncGroupMetadata GetMetadata(Collection<string> clientTables)

{

SyncGroupMetadata groupMetadata = new SyncGroupMetadata();

foreach (string tableName in clientTables)

{

SyncTableMetadata tableMetadata = new SyncTableMetadata();

tableMetadata.LastReceivedAnchor = clientSyncProvider.GetTableReceivedAnchor(tableName);

tableMetadata.TableName = tableName;

groupMetadata.TablesMetadata.Add(tableMetadata);

}

return groupMetadata;

}

Clarifying Sync Framework and SQL Server Compact Compatibility

LarenC_MSFT — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 19:20:30 GMT

http://j.mp/hpmQ4c

Sync Framework and SQL Server Compact install with several versions of Visual Studio and SQL Server, and each version of Sync Framework is compatible with different versions of SQL Server Compact. This can be pretty confusing!

This article on TechNet Wiki clarifies which versions of Sync Framework are installed with Visual Studio and SQL Server, lays out a matrix that shows which versions of SQL Server Compact are compatible with each version of Sync Framework, and walks you through the process of upgrading a SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 database to SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP2.

Sync Framework Tips and Troubleshooting on TechNet Wiki

LarenC_MSFT — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 19:17:59 GMT

http://j.mp/f1TQLi

I've started an article on the Technet Wiki that collects usage tips and troubleshooting for Sync Framework. This can be the first place you look when you have a nagging question that isn't answered anywhere else.

Some tips already collected are recommendations about how to speed up initialization of multiple SQL Server Compact databases, how to find the list of scopes currently provisioned to a database, and how to improve the performance of large replicas for file synchronization.

It's a wiki, so you can add to it! If the answer you need isn't in the article, or if you have more to say about a tip that's already in the article, post what you know. By sharing our knowledge, we can all make Sync Framework even more useful for everyone.

Check out the article, and share your tips: http://j.mp/f1TQLi!

Sync Framework 4.0 October 2010 CTP Refreshed on 11/16

Sreedhar Pelluru — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 22:45:00 GMT

We just refreshed the Sync Framework 4.0 CTP bits to add the following two features:

Tooling Wizard UI: This adds a UI wizard on top of the command line based SyncSvcUtil utility. This wizard allows you to select tables, columns, and even rows to define a sync scope, provision/de-provision a database and generate server-side/client-side code based on the data schema that you have. This minimizes the amount of code that you have to write yourself to build sync services or offline applications. This Tooling Wizard can be found at: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Microsoft Sync Framework\4.0\bin\SyncSvcUtilHelper.exe.

iPhone Sample: This sample shows you how to develop an offline application on iPhone/iPad with SQLite for a particular remote schema by consuming the protocol directly. The iPhone sample can be found at: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Microsoft Sync Framework\4.0\Samples\iPhoneSample.

More information about this release:

Download: The refreshed bits can be found at the same place of the public CTP released at PDC. You can find the download instructions at: here.
Documentation: We also refreshed the 4.0 CTP Documentation online at MSDN at: here.
PDC Session: To learn more about this release 4.0 in general, take a look at our PDC session recording "Building Offline Applications using Sync Framework and SQL Azure".

<In this release, we decided to bump the version of all binaries to 4.0, skipping version 3.0 to keep the version number consistent across all components.>

Updated Sync Framework 4.0 CTP Documentation

Sreedhar Pelluru — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 00:17:00 GMT

The Sync Framework 4.0 CTP documentation on MSDN library (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg299051(v=SQL.110).aspx) has been updated. It now includes the documentation for the SyncSvcUtilHelper UI tool, which is built on top of the SyncSvcUtil command-line tool. This UI tool exposes all the functionalities supported by the command-line tool. In addition, it lets you create or edit a configuration file that you can use later to provision/deprovision SQL Server/SQL Azure databases and to generate server/client code.

Announcing SQL Azure Data Sync CTP2

liamca — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:23:00 GMT

Earlier this week I mentioned that we will have one additional sync session at PDC that would open up after the keynote. Now that the keynote is complete, I am really excited to point you to this session “Introduction to SQL Azure Data Sync” and tell you a little more about what was announced today.

In the keynote today, Bob Muglia announced an update to SQL Azure Data Sync (called CTP2) to enable synchronization of entire databases or specific tables between on-premises SQL Server and SQL Azure, giving you greater flexibility in building solutions that span on-premises and the cloud.

As many of you know, using SQL Azure Data Sync CTP1, you can now synchronize SQL Azure database across datacenters. This new capability will allow you to not only extend data from your on-premises SQL Servers to the cloud, but also enable you to easily extend data to SQL Servers sitting in remote offices or retail stores. All with NO-CODING required!

Later in the year, we will start on-boarding customers to this updated CTP2 service. If you are interested in getting access to SQL Azure Data Sync CTP2, please go here to register.If you would like to learn more and see some demonstrations of how this will work and some of the new features we have added to SQL Azure Data Sync, please take a look at my PDC session recording. Here is the direct video link and abstract.

Video: Introduction to SQL Azure Data Sync (Liam Cavanagh) – 27 min

In this session we will show you how SQL Azure Data Sync enables on-premises SQL Server data to be easily shared with SQL Azure allowing you to extend your on-premises data to begin creating new cloud-based applications. Using SQL Azure Data sync’s bi-directional data synchronization support, changes made either on SQL Server or SQL Azure are automatically synchronized back and forth. Next we show you how SQL Azure Data Sync provides symmetry between SQL Azure databases to allow you to easily geo-distribute that data to one or more SQL Azure data centers around the world. Now, no matter where you make changes to your data, it will be seamlessly synchronized to all of your databases whether that be on-premises or in any of the SQL Azure data centers.

Liam Cavanagh

Announcing Sync Framework 4.0 October 2010 CTP

Sreedhar Pelluru — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 23:48:00 GMT

We are extremely happy to announce the availability of Sync Framework 4.0 October 2010 CTP. To learn more about this release please take a look at our PDC session recording "Building Offline Applications using Sync Framework and SQL Azure".

The Microsoft Sync Framework 4.0 October 2010 CTP is built on top of Sync Framework 2.1 and it extends the Sync Framework capabilities of building offline application to any client platform that is capable of caching data. The release enables synchronization of data stored in SQL Server/SQL Azure over an open standard network format by a remote synchronization service handling all sync specific logic. Moving all synchronization logic off the client enables clients, which do not have the Sync Framework runtime installed, to cache data and participate in a synchronization topology. Earlier versions of Sync Framework required Windows systems with Sync Framework runtime installed on them as clients. This CTP allows other Microsoft platforms such as Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, and Windows Mobile and non-Microsoft platforms such as HTML5, iPhone, Android and other devices with no Sync Framework runtime installed on them as clients.

The major new features included in this CTP are:

Protocol: In this release, we apply the principles of OData to the problem of data-sync and add synchronization semantics to the protocol format. Clients and the service use the protocol to perform synchronization, where a full synchronization is performed the first time subsequently followed by smaller incremental synchronization. The protocol is designed with the goal to make it easy to implement the client-side of the protocol and all the synchronization logic will be running on the service side. It is intended to be used to enable synchronization for a variety of sources including, but not limited to, relational databases and file systems.
Server and Client Components: The release includes server components that make it easy for you to build a synchronization Web service that exposes data from SQL Server or SQL Azure via the Sync protocol. The CTP release includes client component’s that make it easy for you to build offline applications on Silverlight for desktop and Windows Phone 7 platforms.
SyncSvcUtil.exe utility: The release includes a command-line tool, SyncSvcUtil.exe, which helps you with defining and developing sync services and clients.
Business Logic Extensibility on Server: The release allows you to plug in to the synchronization runtime on the service and enable custom business logic configuration using SyncInterceptors.
Diagnostic Dashboard: The release supports a diagnostic dashboard to diagnose the health of the deployed sync services.
Samples and Tutorials: The CTP ships with samples that include a sample service exposing a ToDo list data model as a synchronization service. It also ships the Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, Windows Mobile 6.5 and HTML5 clients that synchronize with the service to show you how to use the components and the protocol. The documentation for CTP contains tutorials, which walk you through creating and consuming a sync service that you can deploy to an on-premise Windows Server or Windows Azure.

The following features will be available in few weeks after PDC10 as a refresh to this release. We will keep you updated on this release on Sync Framework forums and Sync Framework Blog. (Update on 11/16, we just refreshed the bits with the two new features!)

Tooling Wizard UI: This adds a UI wizard on top of the command line based SyncSvcUtil utility. This wizard allows you to select tables, columns, and even rows to define a sync scope, provision/de-provision a database and generate server-side/client-side code based on the data schema that you have. This minimizes the amount of code that you have to write yourself to build sync services or offline applications.
iPhone Sample: This sample shows you how to develop an offline application on iPhone/iPad with SQLite for a particular remote schema by consuming the protocol directly.

For more details please visit

Microsoft download center at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=afd89099-d589-423c-9762-78096aa95ac2&displaylang=en
MSDN library at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd938837(SQL.10).aspx.

(In this release we decided to bump the version of all binaries to 4.0, skipping version 3.0 to keep the version number consistent across all components in the release.)

Improved Sync Framework 2.1 Documentation Released

LarenC_MSFT — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 22:46:25 GMT

http://j.mp/9eWpJq

We have improved the Sync Framework 2.1 documentation. This update includes new and better information in the following database synchronization topics:

Provisioning
Scopes
Intercepting and changing data during synchronization
Improvements to walkthroughs
Deploying to Windows Azure

We've also reorganized and rewritten many topics to help you more easily find and understand what you need to know to use Sync Framework.

Go here to read the improved documentation: http://j.mp/9eWpJq

Don't have Sync Framework 2.1? Download it today: http://j.mp/a3t6rJ

PDC Conference Sessions

liamca — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 23:14:56 GMT

The Professional Developer Conference (PDC) is fast approaching and I wanted to point you to a few sync related sessions that we have at the event. This year's conference will include live streaming of the keynotes, as well as concurrent live streaming of sessions. If you can’t join the live stream, you can still watch the video on-demand, or download all the content within 24 hours of live recording. The online event is free; no registration is required to join the live or on-demand stream.

At this conference we have two sync sessions (you can see a full list of the sessions here) including one additional one by myself that will be added to the session list after the keynote announcements :-). Here is a list of the sessions currently listed:

Building Offline Applications using the Sync Framework and SQL Azure (Nina Hu)
In this session you will learn how to build a client application that operates against locally stored data and uses synchronization to keep up-to-date with a SQL Azure database. See how Sync Framework can be used to build caching and offline capabilities into your client application, making your users productive when disconnected and making your user experience more compelling even when a connection is available. See how to develop offline applications for Windows Phone 7 and Silverlight, plus how the services support any other client platform, such as iPhone and HTML5 applications, using the open web-based sync protocol.

Connecting Cloud & On-Premises Apps with the Windows Azure Platform (Yousef Khalidi)
Not every application or service can be hosted entirely in the cloud. Cloud services often need to provide a combination of cloud-based data access as well as connectivity to on-premises assets in a variety of geographies. Getting access to your on-premises or partner hosted assets securely has never been easier. In this session, learn how to securely connect applications today that span the cloud to on-premises world using Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus and SQL Azure Data Sync Service. Also, gain insight into future scenarios and technologies for assembling these types of services.

Liam