The service handles database management functions for cloud based Microsoft SQL Servers including upgrading, patching, backups, and monitoring without user involvement.

[1] Azure SQL Database supports multi-modal storage of structured, semi-structured, and non-relational data.

[2] Azure SQL Database includes built-in intelligence that learns app patterns and adapts them to maximize performance, reliability, and data protection.

Key capabilities include: Azure SQL Database is built on the foundation of the SQL server database and therefore, kept in sync with the latest version[2] of it by using the common code base.

Since the cloud version of the database technology strives to decouple it from the underlying computing infrastructure, it doesn't support some of the context specific T-SQL features[13] available in the traditional SQL server.