Setting Up Subscriptions, Servers, and Databases

Before using ASD, you must sign up for a Windows Azure subscription. Azure is the core infrastructural platform on which ASD is built. Its heart is a fault-tolerant, geographically distributed network of Microsoft-powered data centers whose online services are available to you on a fee-for-use basis. It provides the backbone operating system, network, and security layers that your database instances need to stay online, healthy, and protected.

Your first steps with ASD include creating your account, provisioning one or more cloud-based servers and instances, and, as a side-effect of accomplishing these tasks, mastering its online toolset.

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