# .NET and More > Microsoft Azure and Cloud Dev >  Microsoft Azure Storage vs. Azure SQL Database

## TechVeera

I saw that there was a similar question asked several months back, but it really didn't address my situation well. Here it goes...

I'm in the process of building from scratch a web-based, .NET application that has the potential to become a high-volume site (several hundred thousand page views a month to start) and am strongly considering using Microsoft Azure to host it. I have not built anything yet and am still researching my different options.

The application itself is, at its core, a standard CRUD application that acts upon a number of different types of entities (e.g. user, order, item, etc.). There are probably some background processes that may be running and some queuing of data (for non-realtime updates -- like getting a SO badge, for example), but most of the interactions with the user will be your typical CRUD type of actions.

Regarding Azure, I have read a number of articles about using Microsoft Azure Storage to store transactional data and am strongly considering doing that instead of using Azure SQL DB. However, I haven't seen or read a number of success stories of real people and/or real companies doing that. So I thought I'd reach out to the SO community to see if anyone has had any experience with using Microsoft Azure Storage, what kind of luck have you had, any gotchas I should look out for, and any best practices that you've come up with.

I've read through a lot of the Microsoft Azure MSDN section and the programming Microsoft Azure Table API document from Microsoft. I'm looking for practical advice, lessons learned, best practices, etc. Thanks in advance!

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