Until now, the single biggest problem has been that both Azure SQL DB and Amazon RDS SQL Server don’t give you access to backup files. If you wanted to get your data out, you were hassling with things like import/export wizards, BCP, or sync apps.
Today, Amazon RDS SQL Server announced support for native backup/restore to Amazon S3.
This is a really, really, really big deal, something Azure SQL DB doesn’t support (and I dearly wish it did). I get even more excited reading this because now Microsoft has to do it in order to remain competitive, and that’ll make Azure SQL DB a much more attractive product for traditional DBAs.
This makes the migration strategy to and from RDS significantly easier. Brent gives a few examples of how this will help customers.