Red Gate is constantly experimenting with technology. Because of a long history working within the Microsoft space, a lot of the new experimentation is in and around Azure. One new venture that could be online soon is SQL Lighthouse. It’s a mechanism for dealing with changing structures in an unrestricted Windows Azure SQL Database where you have multiple developers making changes. Potentially, this is pretty interesting. Please follow the link, check it out, and sign up to be alerted when the program becomes available.

Many people are just getting started with Azure, especially wrapping their heads around the concepts of using a Platform as a Service rather than having infrastructure, local, virtual, or on the cloud. If this is you, and you have an MSDN license, you can get that license hooked up with a free Azure account. Then you can start learning where PaaS could serve you well within your environment. Go here to set this up now. You’ll also be entered for a chance to win a rather nifty automobile.