Azure Updated, Futures Announced

New features and enhancements to the Microsoft-hosted Windows Azure platform were announced at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Oct. 2010. Several of the updates are available now, others will arrive at different times over the next year, and some will become available as free CTPs or fee-based betas before their final releases. The Azure platform, which became commercially available in Feb. 2010 and now hosts more than 20,000 customer applications, is updated on an ongoing basis to address customer requests and competitive offerings and to make it easier to move on-premises applications to Azure.

Windows Azure Gets Most of the Updates

Although SQL Azure, AppFabric, and other Azure components will be updated, Windows Azure will receive most of the additions. Several of the additions are enabled by the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio 1.3, which includes Windows Azure SDK 1.3. (For the updates that haven’t arrived yet, see the chart “Azure Futures Roadmap“.)

The new VM role allows customers to upload VM images (.VHD files) and run them in Microsoft’s data centers with full administrator permissions. This Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering will enable customers to run existing on-premises applications unmodified on Windows Azure. Future VM role improvements include support for Windows Server 2008 SP2 and 2003 in VMs (the initial VM role will only work with Windows Server 2008 R2) and tools for building images directly in Azure rather than creating them on, and uploading them from, an on-premises system. Separately, Microsoft and partners plan a set of Azure Appliances that enable organizations to create private instances of Windows Azure platform services on-premises, to support applications that handle sensitive data or that need to be located in the boundaries of a particular country. (See the sidebar “Azure Appliances“.)