Alternative to Amazon’s SimpleDB from Microsoft

Microsoft has begun signing up testers for SQL Server Data Services SSDS, codenamed Sitka which is a forthcoming service that will allow customers and developers to host their data in a Microsoft-hosted database.

Microsoft is expecting small-to-mid-size businesses; developers and service providers hosting data-intensive and “mashup on-demand applications”; and enterprise customers building edge applications interested in collaborating on large or shared data sets to be the primary customers for the service.

SimpleDB, which Amazon released into public beta in December 2007, is a complement and adjunct to the company’s Elastic Computing Cloud and Simple Data Storage Service.