We are happy to announce new service updates for the SQL Data Sync service which are now operational in all Windows Azure data centers. The past two service updates (June and August) have brought the following enhancements to the preview in addition to general reliability improvements:

• Added support for spatial data types including geography and geometry.
• Added ability for user to cancel a data synchronization in progress.
• Enhanced overall performance on initial provisioning and sync tasks
• Enhanced sync performance between on-premises databases and Windows Azure SQL Databases

SQL Data Sync enables creating and scheduling regular synchronizations between Windows Azure SQL Database and either SQL Server or other SQL Databases.  You can read more about SQL Data Sync on MSDN. We have also published SQL Data Sync Best Practices on MSDN.

The team is hard at work on future updates as we march towards General Availability, and we really appreciate your feedback to date!  Please keep the feedback coming and use the Windows Azure SQL Database Forum to ask questions or get assistance with issues.  Have a feature you’d like to see in SQL Data Sync?  Be sure to vote on features you’d like to see added or updated using the Feature Voting Forum.