High Level Digest On Windows Azure Services Platform
I was reading a white paper called An Introduction to Microsoft .NET Services for Developers while taking few quick notes. The notes might be beneficial to those who wants to quickly get an idea what Windows Azure is. Here is what I have captured:
- Azure – Windows in the cloud, software and data stored and running in Microsoft owned data servers.
- .Net Services platform consists of the following building blocks:
- Windows Azure:
- Hosted in MS data centers.
- Allows creating deploying, scaling, managing, distributing application and services in Internet.
- Business benefits - shields you from costs related to
- Provisioning,
- Configuring,
- …and Managing physical servers and the software running on them
- Windows® Azure storage services are designed to be very simple and highly scalable:
- BLOB storage, queue storage, and simple table storage,
- but it doesn’t provide the capabilities of a relational database (Microsoft® SQL Services does offer all these)
- Microsoft® .NET Services
- .NET developer-oriented services and a software development kit (SDK) for building .NET applications to run in the cloud.
- Based on industry standard protocols - REST, SOAP, and WS-*
- Microsoft® SQL Services
- Set of data-oriented services designed to extend the capabilities SQL Server into the cloud.
- Microsoft® SQL Data Services (SDS), which offers full relational database capabilities.
- Live Services provides a set of user-centric services focused primarily on social applications and experiences:
- Mesh Services
- Identity Services
- Directory Services
- User-Data Storage Services
- Communication and Presence Services
- Search Services, and Geospatial Services
- Embraces REST, Atom, and AtomPub
- Domain-specific service offerings
- Microsoft® SharePoint Services
- Microsoft® Dynamics CRM Services
- Using Windows Azure:
- Register at www.azure.com
- Download SDK