Microsoft Announces New Azure SQL Database Tiers

Microsoft is cleaning house by replacing its current cloud-database service tiers with new ones. According to the company, it is retiring its SQL Database Web and Business service tiers on April 24, 2015. Furthermore, Microsoft has also rolled out previews for the new Basic and Standard tiers. Also, Microsoft has assured customers that it will have at least six months of general availability of the new tiers, even if that means extending the retirement date, before retiring the old tiers.

Although Microsoft outlined a stronger 99.95 percent SLA, along with larger database storage support up to 500 GBs earlier this month, the company is now making its Basic, Standard, and Premium publicly available. According to Microsoft, the official tiers are described as the following:

See this helpful Microsoft FAQ for more information about the new database tiers, along with pricing information.