Windows Azure is a Platform
Aside from random bits and pieces that Microsoft are working on (such as Office365 - their new version of communications and collaboration products in the cloud), Windows Azure is Microsoft’s answer to cloud computing. Windows Azure is Microsoft’s operating system for the cloud. In the Cloud Computing Taxonomy, Windows Azure currently lives in the Platform as a Service (PaaS) space. As a general definition, the cloud lets you scale your applications up or down depending on the demands of your business. Windows Azure is flexible, secure, and structured with business continuity in mind. Microsoft have guaranteed that Azure will be fully functional 99.9% of the time. This means that in an entire year, Microsoft claims that Windows Azure will only be unavailable for 8.76 hours or less. So what is Windows Azure exactly? There’s quite a bit to cover to truly explain Windows Azure in all of its greatness, but I’ve attempted to capture a general overview in this article.
The Windows Azure platform can really be broken down in to two components:
- Applications
- Data
One of the beautiful things about Windows Azure is that it allows developers to create solutions with several general purpose programming languages. This is a huge benefit for the adoption of Microsoft technologies because it allows individuals the freedom of building solutions in a language that they are comfortable with. Further, if a current on-premise application is going to be moved in to Windows Azure platform – there’s a chance that the application will only have to be slightly modified rather than entirely rewritten.
Here are some of the programming languages which Windows Azure supports:
So, back to the breakdown of Applications and Data. What are we really talking about here?
Applications
- Compute
- Applications built from role instances running in virtual machines
- Storage
- Blob and scale-out structured storage
- Management
- Automatic deployment and monitoring of role instances
- CDN
- Content delivery network for blob data
- Virtual Network
- IP-level connectivity with on-premises apps and data
- AppFabric
- Service Bus
- Access Control
- Caching
- Appliance
- A turnkey cloud platform that can be installed in a private datacenter
- Marketplace
- An online marketplace for developers to share, find, buy and sell building block components, training, service templates, premium data sets plus finished services and applications needed to build Windows Azure platform applications
Data
- Database
- Familiar SQL Server relational database model
- Support for existing APIs and tools
- Built for the cloud with high availability and fault tolerance
- Data Sync
- Provides two-way sync of SQL Azure databases across datacenters
- Provides two-way sync of SQL Azure databases and on-premises SQL Server databases
- Reporting
- Provides SQL Server Reporting Services for SQL Azure data
- Appliance (defined in the above section)
How can you use Windows Azure?
Although the possibilities are nearly endless, there are several high-level opportunities to use the Windows Azure Platform:
- New application Development
- Application Extension
- Storage as a Service
- Application Migration & Maintenance
- Data Center Extension
Summary
In Summary, Windows Azure offers the following key differentiators:
- Choice of familiar development tools
- Choice of relational or native storage
- Choice in on-premises “private” cloud, cloud hosted, or creating hybrid solutions
- Enterprise-ready, world-class Microsoft support
If you’d like to read more about Windows Azure, please bookmark our blog! I also recommend reading the Windows Azure Team Blog which is constantly flowing with new information and relevant case studies.
-Ira Bell
