This document discusses federations in SQL Azure. Federations allow scaling out data by partitioning it across multiple databases. The document shows an example of a "CustData" federation with members for customer ID ranges that each contain sample data partitions. It also shows an "Orders_Fed" federation partitioned by customer ID that could include related order data spread across multiple databases. In the future, SQL Azure will support federations natively as a way to scale databases beyond a single server.