Windows hosting services can host your websites and apps on dedicated Microsoft technologies like ASP.NET or .NET. In fact, they can even run different products like Exchange or Microsoft SQL Server.

Microsoft has released the first CTP of its SQL Server Hosting Toolkit. This toolkit is designed to provide support for companies using a hosted SQL Server.

That public preview is part of the launch of the next version of SQL Server, which will be the first one that’s available for both Windows and Linux.