title: ASP.NET Membership Providers and Azure
body: <p>I currently have about 15 Web Forms Application (2.0+) websites on a hosted VM and I need to migrate all my client's sites to Azure shortly. Several of these sites use SQL Server 2008 and the regular ASP.NET Membership Provider (some with custom profiles). All data access in these clients' sites use ADO.NET.</p>
  
  <p>I suspect that I need to upgrade to "Universal Providers", but I am confused by the existence of ASP.NET "Identity" and "SimpleMembership" providers. I'm now looking at three different providers offered by Microsoft. Can someone clarify which to use and which one corresponds to the future direction Microsoft is taking?</p>
  
  <p>If Universal Providers is the correct way to go, does this mean that ADO.NET code will not work? To be specific, will Universal Providers only work with Entity Framework? If this is the case, what is the best migration approach to take short of abandoning Azure completely?</p>