I spoke today at SQL Saturday #71 where I gave a talk on “Storing Data in the Cloud: Beyond SQL Azure” where I talk about the following:

• What is the Cloud
• How does SQL Azure compare with SQL Server
• What are the other storage options available on the Windows Azure Platform

There were many interesting questions from the audience of 20 or so people – One asked (paraphrasing here..) “Are the Microsoft Data Centers resilient to the radiation expected from a nuke” to which I did not have a good answer. To another question, Jeff Mlakar (@JeffMlakar) offered helpfully that the SQL Azure Data Sync service is an option for SQL Azure backups to on-prem and with geo-replicating SQL Azure across data centers.

We didn’t get to the end of the material due to lots of discussion… but we did get through the most critical concepts.