Handling connection failures to SQL Azure

SQL Azure database is a distributed system in which each physical server hosts many databases. This sharing of resources leads to capacity constraints on operational throughput. SQL Azure handles these capacity constraints by throttling operations and closing connections that are using too many resources. SQL Azure also closes connections when it alleviates operational hot spots by switching from a primary SQL Azure database to one of its two backup copies. Furthermore, connectivity to a SQL Azure database is likely to be less reliable than connectivity to a Microsoft SQL Server database on a corporate LAN. It is imperative therefore that applications using SQL Azure be designed to withstand the connection failures that are far more likely to occur than with Microsoft SQL Server.

One of the mantras of cloud development is design for failure. It is important that applications using SQL Azure be designed to handle failures appropriately. There are two...