I recently presented a session on SQL Azure (you can download the slide deck here). During the session we talked a lot about some of the little things I have found by simply using SQL Azure. The need for a clustered index on every table was a surprise to me when I first found out about it, and it seemed surprising to everyone in the room as well. One person mentioned how it is a common practice to drop indexes before loading data to a table, for example, so they would need to rethink the steps involved in pushing data to the cloud.

I still think the biggest hurdle will be how Microsoft approaches the application of service packs and hotfixes to SQL Azure. One person at my session suggested that they would assume that Microsoft would have done thorough testing of the patch and also that with such limited features available right now that the testing would be able to be streamlined. I tended to agree but decided to point out something I found with their documentation:

Click to see full image

So, they went out of their way to link to four DMVs that they DO NOT support, and the one DMV they do support in this category is not even a hyperlink? Why, exactly, would you hyperlink to things I cannot use? With such a huge usability FAIL, why is it that I would trust them to do thorough testing of any patch when they cannot even handle the usability of their documentation?

I want to love SQL Azure, I really do. I intend to find more and more ways to utilize it whenever possible. But when I see things like above it really makes me question how some of the plumbing is really being handled. I strongly believe that if you take care of the little things then you will inevitably also take care of the big things. And if you can’t do the little things right then you might as well “use the button”.

Use the button, please.

In the past four weeks I have come across a lot of issues with the documentation being borderline unusable. When I was trying to push data to the cloud a few weeks back I talked to Buck Woody (blog | twitter) about a handful of options to which he replied “Why don’t you just use Sync?”

“Well,” I replied, “because I don’t see that mentioned anywhere as an option. Don’t your departments talk to each other? Why is this option not in the documentation?”

I know this is really v1.0 of a product, and that things will get better in time. I truly hope that is the case and we are not going to be subject to having things half-done tossed over the fence at us to use. But the more time I spend with SQL Azure the less comfortable I am that they are taking care of the little things.

And I consider documentation to be more than just a little thing.