G’day,

Well, it was only a few  days ago that I blogged about some major Azure SQL Database enhancements. Primarily, in that post,I was referring to new features that were made available in the new V12 preview portal, specifically for moving “On Prem” database to Azure SQL Database.

Well, firstly a new feature is being moved to the portal. And when I say new, I’m not referring to a standard SQL Server feature that is already available in the “On Prem”  version of the product. Oh no.

I am referring to a new feature called Row Level Security (RLS) that is debuting first in Azure SQL Database – before it has even made it to the “On Prem” version.

And secondly, the preview portal will be making its way to General Availability (GA) throughout all Microsoft Data Centers over the next few months.

You can read the official announcements for yourself here - the section that this blog post is specifically talking about can be found under the heading “General Availability for Azure SQL Database Latest Update (V12) and New Security Features Coming” – although you’ll also find lots of cool Azure related announcements on the same page.

I’ll be blogging more about this feature (RLS) in the next few weeks, but for now,lets say it can restrict access to certain rows based on criteria that a developer / DBA defines.

I think that rolling new features out to the cloud first will motivate data professionals to preview these features – even if they ultimately have no interest in moving their current databases to the cloud. It will give them first hand experience of new features before they appear in the main “On Prem” version.

Have a great day.

Cheers

Martin.