Announcement: Storing Access apps and data in the cloud

Wow, this "seems" promising.... WBR

RJ

I'll echo RJ's statement....Looks interesting....

I'll be looking for updates & progress... :)

Looks very interesting indeed.

Looks very promising and it could make Access a really interesting tool for distributed and disconnected applications.

I'm very eager to test this.

Looks very promising. Filemaker has something similar called web publishing... My question are:

1- users/owners of MS Access have access to this feature “free” or do they need to pay some monthly fee?

2- SQL services and Data Sync Framework is installled on the customer server or you have to use Microsoft Datacenters? Thanks. Sam Caro.

Hmm... aftert reading the whole thing I am left wondering a few things:

Since Huron will enable sharing of "the whole schema with forms, reports, code, views, and tables from Access"...how does this impact SourceSafe? ...or does this just seem sort-of like an MS-Access-SourceSafe-AddIn-On-Streoids (at least in part) to only me?

Reading between the lines, I'm wondering about the security configurability and what capabilities there may be for constructing "partial replicas" of larger data stores for use within/by Huron? I could find very good use for just the "Sourcesafe"-like capabilities alone right now! Hmm... what is the likelyhood of an Access2003-based client front-end for Huron? (okay, i won't be holding my breath for it, but given the amount of Access2003-and-earlier development still happening, perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea...

That is good to see, I've been quietly hoping that there would be a way to tie some version of Access (hopefully not just Access 2007) to SSDS (now SDS). If it works well it could be very useful; much more useful for my work than the current tie in to sharepoint. So I'd like to chime in on Mark's question, will it work with Access 2003? Sam asked about pricing and that'd be of interest too. It would be a major plus if light duty consumers had a free ride, as they do with office live's sharepoint data.

Hi Sam, To your questions, 1) We have not decided on pricing for this desktop sync but I suspect the only piece that you will need to pay for is within the Cloud (SQL Data Services). 2) The Sync Service is integrated in the SQL Data Services cloud layer. There will be a Sync Framework runtime that will run on the client. However, we are also looking at the option of moving the entire Sync Framework runtime into the cloud as well so that you can target sync to non-microsoft devices as well. Liam Cavanagh

I wanted to thank all of you so far for the responses to our early adopter program. It is really great as a Program Manager to see such a large response rate to a new technology. Just to give an initial level set, we are looking to start our early adopter program in the next month or two and those of you who have applied should see a follow up email in the next week. Liam Cavanagh

Hi Mark, We are envisioning multiple types of sharing to be enabled through "Huron". As you point out security of data as it moves into the Cloud data hub can be an incredibly big deal, especially when you start talking about enterprise data. At first we will simply be securing the data in the cloud through authentication. As we move forward we also want to give the ability to let you choose the data representation in the cloud. For example, some data might be fully encrypted in the cloud store to enable end-to-end encryption from enterprise to mobile user. The downside here is that you can not access the data in the cloud online (since it is encrypted). As such, for other data tables you might want to set it to be read-only, or maybe give full update access for other tables. I go into this in a fair bit more detail on this in my PDC session from earlier this week at:

channel9.msdn.com/.../BB40 As we move forward we also want to allow you to publish different scopes of information. For example some tables to Accounting, some tables to Sales Reps, etc. Liam

Hi michaels, Access 2003 is certainly something that we are looking to support but since we have not completed a full engineering review it is hard to say if this will be in the initial early adopter version. So far it looks like it just should work with 2003, but it is unclear if there will be any major hurdles that will limit the time for this support. - Liam

This looks excellent and I would be very interested in taking part in the beta.

One question for you which is very important for me. Will it work with Access 2007 runtime? I got caught out with Office Live/Sharepoint and offline data expecting it to work with Access 2007 runtime. When it didn't, it all got a bit embarrassing. Alan

This technology would be great for developing apps for field workers. Being able to sync with mobile devices would be great - are there any plans to do a lightweight version of Access for Windows Mobile?

Alan, Thanks for the feedback on 2007 runtime. To be honest this is not something we had put into our test plans but I will make sure to pass this on to engineering and test team to investigate for the early adopter version. - Liam

Liam, Access 2007 Runtime support is critical to our business model as related to using the cloud. We want to use the Access 2007 Runtime as sort of a Business Browser using Access features, .NET addins, sync and the web browser control. Data on the cloud would greatly benefit our model.