As many of developers, I'm looking for a way to integrate my existing app to SQL Azure Federations, and replacing the Identity columns (the primary keys of my tables) is a big problem.

For many reasons, I do NOT want use GUID for my primary keys (please don't open the debate about the GUID or not, it's not my question : i just don't want a GUID, period).

So I need to build a key provider to replace the "identity" feature of a standard SQL database. I'm using Entity Framework, so i can easily find one place to set the Id value just before the insert (by overriding the SaveChanges method of my ObjectContext class). I just need to find a "not too complicated" implementation for getting the current Id, which is "farm-ready".

I've read this SO post : "ID Generation for Sharded Database (Azure Federated Database)" and "Synchronizing Multiple Nodes in Windows Azure from MSDN Magazine", but this solution sounds a bit complicated for me.

I'm thinking about creating (automatically) one azure queue for each SQL table, which contain a pre-loaded list of consecutive integer. When I want an Id value, I just have to get a message from the queue (which becomes invisible and is deleted on the way), which give me the current available Id.

About the choice between "Windows Azure Queues" and "Windows Azure Service Bus Queues", I prefere "Windows Azure Queues", due to the "high" latency of Service Bus Queues. I don't think that the lack of "ordering garantee" of Azure Queues is a problem.

What do you think about that idea of using Azure Queues to provide Id values ? Do you see any argument to give up that idea ? Do you have a better idea, or even a good practice, to provider integer ids in SQL Azure Federation databases ? Thanks.