If you’ve been reading the wires about SQL Azure you will have seen a change to the tiers that are being offered. Thsi is all so that you can get a more predictable performance level from the platform and also to enable Azure to manage the resources. You now have 3 categories basic, standard and premium, and within those you have some other levels. This enables you to start your service at a low level and then as required request more capacity (through the portal or API).   For details on the...(read more)

http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/simons/archive/2014/05/14/scaling-sql-server-in-azure.aspx