Updated: July 15, 2020 (July 14, 2014)
Analyst ReportAzure Cloud Services Guest OS Family Expiring
Azure’s Cloud Services component, which offers Platform as a Service Web and worker role compute instances, will cease to offer the Windows Server 2008 SP2 Guest OS Family on Sept. 2, 2014. The discontinued availability (which Microsoft calls an expiration) of this Family could lead to forced OS upgrades for applications deployed on Azure, so customers should ensure their applications are compatible with a later OS version. The expiration could also affect System Center Configuration Manager customers using cloud-based distribution points. This is the first Family to expire since Azure has been in production, and a support policy details the process.
Guest OSs Grouped by Families, Versions
Azure offers several application hosting services. Cloud Services Web and worker roles are virtual environments that run customer application code and are typically used for deploying Internet-facing applications and services. Microsoft configures, patches, and maintains the OS and platform software (such as the .NET Framework) for application components running on these roles, simplifying management for the customer. This Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering has been available since Azure went into production in early 2010. It is separate from Azure Virtual Machines (which became generally available in Apr. 2013), an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering that runs code in customer-managed virtual machines.
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