Manuvir Das, Director in the Windows Azure team introduces us to Microsoft’s new cloud operating system, Windows Azure. This new OS, it’s less a replacement for the operating system that runs on one’s own PC than it is an alternative for developers, intended to let them write programs that live inside Microsoft’s data centers as opposed to on the servers of a given business.

Back a month ago, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer started talking about something he nicknamed “Windows Cloud.” While he was short on details, he did reveal that the product would essentially work as an operating system for cloud-computing applications. Primarily a platform for developers, Windows Azure plays host to the .Net Framework, SQL Server, SharePoint, Dynamics CRM, and an offering called Live Services, which, according to Ozzie, will extend Azure services “outward” to connect with locally running Microsoft software. Using this rich environment, developers will be able to build and deploy Web applications and services running on Microsoft’s worldwide infrastructure of datacenters.

Key components of Azure Services Platform include the following:
– Windows Azure, for service hosting and management and low-level scalable storage, computation, and networking.
– Microsoft SQL Services, for database services and reporting.
– Microsoft .Net Services, which are service-based implementations of .Net Framework concepts such as workflow. .Net Services previously was called BizTalk Services. “The services themselves, we found, were actually more identifiable to the .Net community than BizTalk,” said Steve Martin, Microsoft senior product management director in the company’s Connected Systems Division.
– Live Services, for sharing, storing, and synchronizing documents, photos, and files across PCs, phones, PC applications, and Web sites.
– Microsoft SharePoint Services and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Services for business content, collaboration, and solution development in the cloud.
Microsoft plans to start making Azure services available next year. The company will charge based on an “app’s resource consumption” and the “service level we plan to provide,” Ray said. He wouldn’t detail pricing other than to say that it would be “competitive.” Competitive with what? I ask, since there’s nothing quite like this service platform.

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Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 12:58 pm | by Kur-nia-one |