Cost effective Data Warehousing with Azure SQL Data Warehouse

Azure SQL Data Warehouse Service is now in preview. You have to go to the preview portal to get started. If this is your new account, you can have a free trial.

Following on the heels of April's Build Conference Microsoft has announced the enterprise-class elastic data warehouse as a service- the Azure SQL Data Warehouse available for public preview.
The driving forces are of course the elasticity and cost effectiveness. If you have already invested in Azure cloud you have at your disposal Azure related tools, utilities and skills.

With SQL Data Warehouse Microsoft is offering:

• The first enterprise-class elastic data warehouse that includes the separation of compute and storage, enabling customers to pay for what they need, when they need it
• The ability to pause the database so you only pay for commodity storage costs
• Full SQL Server experience that includes PolyBase that allows you to combine queries for your structured and unstructured data using the skills you have today 
• Hybrid options – your data, your platform, your choice

Azure SQL Data Warehouse Service is based on massive, parallel processing architecture and integrates with PowerBI and Azure Machine Learning for advanced analytics. It also integrates with Azure Data Factory for event processing and its big data offering, the Azure HD Insight.
Here is the big picture:

You need to get to the preview portal to get started.