AppFabric Services History and Naming

Windows Azure AppFabric evolved from earlier technology previews called BizTalk Services in Apr. 2007, renamed .NET Services when the Windows Azure platform was announced in Oct. 2008, and finally renamed again to Windows Azure AppFabric in Nov. 2009. Early previews contained services for building application workflows based on the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) 3.5, although that capability was removed before Azure was released and is expected to reappear on the platform with WF 4 support.

Windows Azure AppFabric is a different technology and provides different capabilities than Windows Server AppFabric. The latter is a set of extensions to Windows Server that provides infrastructure and tools to simplify deploying and managing applications based on the Windows Communication Foundation messaging and WF workflow platforms. Windows Server AppFabric also provides a cross-server, in-memory Web application caching system. The two AppFabric technologies are expected to converge in future releases, offering services and tools to simplify application deployment on Microsoft’s on-premises and cloud-based platforms.