Windows® Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Windows Azure Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft® data centers.
Windows Azure is currently in Community Technology Preview. Commercial availability for Windows Azure will likely be at the end of calendar year 2009.
Windows Azure is an open platform that will support both Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages and environments. To build applications and services on Windows Azure, developers can use their existing Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 expertise. In addition, Windows Azure supports popular standards and protocols including SOAP, REST, XML, and PHP.
Use Windows Azure to:
- Add Web service capabilities to existing packaged applications
- Build, modify, and distribute applications to the Web with minimal on-premises resources
- Perform services (large-volume storage, batch processing, intense or large-volume computations, etc.) off premises
- Create, test, debug, and distribute Web services quickly and inexpensively
- Reduce costs of building and extending on-premises resources
- Reduce the effort and costs of IT management
‹ Stackato (by ActiveState) up Wolf Frameworks Cloud Computing Platform ›
Recent blog posts
- Cloud Environments for Big Data — a Neovise Cloud Perspectives Podcast
- Succeeding as a Cloud Service Provider — a Neovise Cloud Perspectives Podcast
- Scalable Storage without a High-Speed Network — a Neovise Cloud Perspectives Podcast
- Neovise Research: Welcome to the Multi-Cloud World
- The Battle for Service Provider Clouds
- Cloud Predictions and Trends for 2013
- Low Margins for AWS: Not Driven by Economies of Scale
- Public Cloud for the Enterprise: A Podcast with Andi Mann, VP CA Technologies
- OpenStack Update: A Podcast with Boris Renski, Co-founder and CMO of Mirantis
- Cloud Connect Chicago, ProfitBricks Podcast with Bob Rizika, U.S. CEO and Achim Weiss, CEO Germany