Explain what is Federation in SQL Azure?

Federation is introduced in SQL Azure for scalability. It helps administrators by making repartitioning and redistributing of data easier and thus, helps with scaling data. It helps developers in the routing layer and the sharding of data. It helps in routing without application downtime. Federation does basic scaling of objects in a SQL Azure Database. Federations are the partitioned data. There can be multiple Federations within a database. Moreover, each Federation represents a different distribution scheme. We create a Federation with a different distribution scheme and requirement. Student and Grade’s tables of a School Database may have a different distribution requirement, so they are put into different Federations.