What is the difference between SQL Azure and SQL Server ?

SQL Azure is a subset of SQL Server, at its core it is therefore fully compatible with SQL Server. However there are several features of SQL Server are absent in SQL Azure:

The below features are not supported in SQL Azure:

• SQL Server Agent
• SQL Server Error Logs
• SQL Server Utility
• SQL Server PowerShell Provider
• Master Data Services
• Change Data Capture
• Data Auditing
• Data Compression
• Extended Events
• Extension of spatial types and methods through the CLR
• External Key Management / Extensible Key Management
• FILESTREAM Data
• Integrated Full-Text Search
• Large User-Defined Aggregates (UDAs)
• Large User-Defined Types (UDTs)
• Performance Data Collection (Data Collector)
• Policy-Based Management
• Resource Governor
• Sparse Columns
• SQL Server Replication
• Transparent Data Encryption

Note that PowerShell scripts can be executed from on an on-premise computer will connect to SQL Azure using supported objects (like the System Management Objects).

Updated August 25, 2010