Just sign up, says Microsoft

Aug 19, 2009 13:13 GMT  ·  By

Earlier today I told you that the first Community Technology Preview of SQL Azure went live on August 18th, 2009. Now the obvious question is how you will manage to get yourselves invited to test drive the CTP development milestone. And the answer is rather simple. Effectively, all that you have to do is sign up for an SQL Azure Invitation Code. Microsoft indicated that in the coming months it would make sure to provide invitations to SQL Azure to all users who showed interest in testing the extension of SQL Server in the Windows Azure Cloud.

“Now that CTP1 is out the door a question that keeps coming up is… “I registered for a token a couple months ago… When am I going to get an email with my Invitation Code?” We are glad that people are as excited about the SQL Azure release as we are so we love this question,” revealed Microsoft Technical Evangelist Zach Skyles Owens. “Over the next week or two everyone who has already signed up for a SQL Azure Invitation Code should be receiving an email with the token and a link to redeem it. We understand that everyone would like their tokens yesterday but we need to work through the list and ramp up the service.”

Owens noted that Microsoft was hard at work processing the current list of participation request in the CTP testing phase of SQL Server. However, the Redmond company is not about to let testers out. After it will be done combing through existing CTP requests, Microsoft will start looking at additional participation candidates, and will begin within a couple of days. Users who have yet to sign up for the SQL Azure CTP can do so via Microsoft Connect.

“We are working on integrating the SQL Azure and Windows Azure provisioning experience. We realize that it is very inconvenient to have to make requests for two different tokens from different places,” Owens added. “What about customers who already have an account on the previous version of SQL Data Services/SQL Server Data Services which had an ACE model with a REST API? When will they get tokens? We will be providing all of those users with a token, but in the meantime I’d recommend that all of those users sign up for the CTP.”