SQL Server on Azure is not. I ramped up on Linux and MongoDB and have that working working on Azure. I finally gave up on Windows and SQL Server and have been rewarded.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008/R2 reach end of support; SQL Server 2019 and Azure await Microsoft's database releases from 2008 and 2010 reach end of extended support.

And SQL Azure Data Sync replicates and synchronizes on-premise SQL Server databases to Azure. All these moves give traditional Windows developers significantly higher degrees of freedom to try and ...

On the Windows side, Microsoft is supporting Windows Server 2008 R2 (with or without SQL Server 2012 Eval), as well as Windows Server 2012 RC with its VMs.

The company's Transparent Data Encryption option, borrowed from SQL Server, is now generally available as part of numerous upgrades to its cloud database platform.