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Updates Coming Soon!

SQL Server Data Services (SSDS)

We are getting ready to move our Sprint 3 bits into production and we have a great deal of new functionality coming including:

  •  Blob Support via the REST interface
    • Support for storing unstructured Blob data has been the most requested feature.
    • Blob Support via the SOAP interface is coming.
    • In the beta release, Blobs are limited to 100 megabytes in size.
  •  Version metadata property has been changed from an integer to a large integer.
    • Version numbers are now based on a timestamp and will not monotonically increase as before.
  •  ETAG and HEAD support via REST, with similar functionality via SOAP
    • Support for If-Match and If-None –Match via the REST interface. This will allow you to verify that you have a current Entity enabling you to use resources more efficiently.
    • Support for “Accept” header via the REST interface. This will allow you to denote what content you want returned from the service. For instance when retrieving a Blob, the “Accept” header will allow you to choose between the Blob content, or the metadata properties associated with it. 
  • A new content type – “application/x-ssds+xml” has been added to the service
    • This content type is for storing XML content in the service.
    • Existing “application/xml” content type is being phased out in a future sprint.
    • The "application/x-ssds+xml" content type should be used for all entities except those containing blob content.  Blob entities should instead use a content type value which best reflects the type of blob data stored.  It's important to note that the value chosen here will be used later when attempting to retrieve the different parts of an entity by using the, "Accept" header.  

Please Note:

  • All Data will be deleted. This includes all Authorities, Containers and Entities. The SSDS Team understands the impact that the deletion of data will cause the development and testing efforts you have underway. This is necessary due to the enhanced functionality we are providing. As stated previously, we will keep these disruptions to a minimum during the SSDS beta period. Please rest assured that once the service goes live, we will ensure data fidelity.
  • Special characters in SSDS User Ids will no longer be supported. User Ids that contain special characters will have the special character replaced with the “_” character during the upgrade. You will be notified via a separate email if you will be affected by this.
  • While the “application/xml” content type will still be supported in the short term, we highly recommend that you begin to migrate your applications to the new “application/x-ssds+xml” content type.

These updates will be coming in a few weeks.  Further details on how to access these new features will be posted to the SSDS DevCenter located athttp://msdn.microsoft.com/sql/dataservices

An additional notification will be sent out a week prior to the schedule updates with pointers to the updated MSDN content.

Thank You,

The SSDS Team

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