SQL Azure Federations allow horizontal scaling of databases in SQL Azure. Federations partition database tables across multiple database servers or shards. Each federation member contains a subset of rows from a table based on the federation key value. The root member contains metadata and global data while federation members provide physical data separation and can have their own schemas. However, federations have limitations such as requiring an INT, BIGINT, UNIQUEIDENTIFIER or VARBINARY distribution key and not supporting NULL values or IDENTITY properties for federated columns.