Hi,

I have two questions about these two functions that we currently use on our on-premises database which we want to migrate to the cloud.

1. I understand that these functions are currently not available on SQL Azure. I want to confirm that if I create a virtual machine w/ SQL Server 2012 on Windows Azure, I should be able to use them. Is that correct?
2. Any idea when these functions would become available on SQL Azure?

Have a look at the reply from Kalman in this thread.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsazure/en-US/5ffb0eb4-bd7f-4208-99cb-e82184e8057a/sql-window-functions-used-what-do-i-do-on-sql-azure

You can use the RUNNING TOTAL logic to implement the LAG & LEAD functions: http://www.sqlusa.com/bestpractices2005/runningtotalusingcursor/

Thanks for your response.

I want to go back to my first question.

I see that Microsoft has already created nice images that I can choose from in the gallery.

If I create a new VM on Windows Azure with SQL Server 2012 using one of those images, will I have full feature set of SQL Server 2012 as if I'm running it on a server?

Let me answer my own question:

The answer is yes to my first question. I set up a VM on Azure with SQL Server 2012 running on Windows 2012 and I have full SQL Server 2012 functionality.

I selected this image from the gallery and the setup was quick and totally painless.

I think it's also safe to assume that this image reflects Microsoft's best practices for setting up SQL Server which I think is an added bonus!