Azure Cost

Question

Hi, I've recently joined the October CTP and have been emailed some Q & A information by MS, one of which was :-

Q: What happens to my database when SQL Azure officially releases?

A: Your database will automatically roll over into the production service once SQL Azure reaches commercial availability.

Does this mean that as soon as Azure officially goes live and my DB's are rolled into production there will be an expectation to start paying for this service ni terms of disk space using, bandwidth, transactions etc??

Thanks

Answer 1

Hello,
Here it is explained: http://blogs.msdn.com/ssds/archive/2009/10/14/9907238.aspx

When SQL Azure Database becomes generally available, this environment will automatically roll over into a fully supported production environment and all your databases and data in this environment will be converted into an active subscription to the SQL Azure Database service based on the subscription offer you choose.

This, most probably means that you (we) will be offered to create a subscription within some given ammount of time to decide whether to continue using this service or not. If we choose a subscription plan and pay - the databases associated with our account will not be deleted. But if choose not to create a paid subscription for the Azure service - then our databases will be deleted.

Answer 2

Thanks for that Anton.