Microsoft has announced a preview of a new Premium Windows Azure SQL Database offering. The Premium Windows Azure SQL Database product enables you to reserve capacity for your SQL Database which guarantees a fixed amount of dedicated resources (CPU, Memory and IO).

Its quite evident from this release that some customers have suffered variation in performance if they were running a decent workload. This is not unexpected due to the level of sharing that would be required to make the SQL Database financially viable at the prices MS was charging.

However, the game now changes for customers who want guaranteed or more consistent performance and are prepared to pay for it. The question is whether the available resource reservation options are high enough to meet the customer workload requirements.

Here’s what you can reserve now in the preview version of the release.

See the full rundown on the Premium Windows Azure SQL Database offering here