Updated Azure Application Platform

An updated Azure platform will run Web applications, Web services, cross-application business processes, and other server-side systems. The updated platform will be available as a Microsoft-hosted service and in the Azure Pack software for deployment in customer and partner data centers. A simplified view of important components and their dependencies is shown here, with new components (dark) and existing Azure components (light).

The new platform will include Azure Websites and Mobile Services, which help developers build, deploy, and run application code that serves clients.

Logic for long-running business processes (workflows) will run on a new workflow platform, derived from a workflow technology that is currently used in Azure Resource Manager for system deployment and management.

Workflows will call on Web services (called microservices) for basic operations. A key family of microservices from Microsoft will provide message-oriented application integration as BizTalk Server and BizTalk Services do today. For example, integration microservices will translate between message formats (such as electronic data interchange formats), exchange messages with specific applications (such as Salesforce.com and SharePoint), and transmit messages over common protocols such as Secure FTP. A microservices runtime will provide monitoring and other functions for microservices, and a microservices store technology will distribute and update both commercial microservices from partners and custom microservices from customers.