Microsoft Azure Services
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What the hell is Microsoft Azure Services? I was doing something and a pop-up came up with it, never heard of it so I had a look. The site is almost 100% buzzwords and does'nt actually explain what the hell it is... So, someone enlighten me please. From what I can tell, it is some sort of paid hosting or something...
The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec² - Marcus Dolengo
Simply worded: tool for tools.
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Expert Coming wrote:
From what I can tell, it is some sort of paid hosting or something...
No, no... Paid hosting is an established market, with plenty of fair comparisons between providers to be made on price, service, performance, etc... Hosting is decidedly old hat. Azure is cloud computing, a nebulous class of services based around wet-behind-the-ears technologies and airy promises.
Ok, so what exactly does it mean by cloud computing? Certainly nothing like BOINC or cluster computing...
The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec² - Marcus Dolengo
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What the hell is Microsoft Azure Services? I was doing something and a pop-up came up with it, never heard of it so I had a look. The site is almost 100% buzzwords and does'nt actually explain what the hell it is... So, someone enlighten me please. From what I can tell, it is some sort of paid hosting or something...
The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec² - Marcus Dolengo
It's just like SharePoint, only different.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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What the hell is Microsoft Azure Services? I was doing something and a pop-up came up with it, never heard of it so I had a look. The site is almost 100% buzzwords and does'nt actually explain what the hell it is... So, someone enlighten me please. From what I can tell, it is some sort of paid hosting or something...
The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec² - Marcus Dolengo
For years the normal business model was to run your own servers to which your users connected to do day to day business. The problem with this scenario is that it becomes a huge task to manage the hardware and software for such a model. For a small company it may be one man (such as myself) managing and even then it takes many hours. As companies grow it becomes worse. The notion of Software As A Service (SaaS) has been around for a while and that is what Azure is all about. It has - for some reason - been dubbed Cloud computing. I believe Amazon was one of the first to offer it. The premise is simple - Microsoft is building out huge server farms all over the world. Companies simply subscribe to Azure services instead of maintaining in-house servers and pay for what they use. Azure can provide service for a small company or a huge enterprise. Azure can scale to 10's of thousands of users and almost unlimited storage capacity. It is based on web technologies but it is NOT just another hosting service. The user interface is through a browser but you're not looking at web pages as such. More importantly developers can program their own services or you can buy time on existing services. And it's all done on a pay as you use basis. Every developer should look at the new programming tools which run on Visual Studio 2008. If you have access to isvinnovations.com there are many hours of training videos available. It is almost certainly the future of computing so pay attention folks. :cool:
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What the hell is Microsoft Azure Services? I was doing something and a pop-up came up with it, never heard of it so I had a look. The site is almost 100% buzzwords and does'nt actually explain what the hell it is... So, someone enlighten me please. From what I can tell, it is some sort of paid hosting or something...
The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec² - Marcus Dolengo
I've been assuming that it's got something to do with Microsoft's sponsorship of the Italian national football (soccer) team. If not that then what the heck was Bill doing in Sardinia the other week.
modified on Friday, February 27, 2009 5:20 AM
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What the hell is Microsoft Azure Services? I was doing something and a pop-up came up with it, never heard of it so I had a look. The site is almost 100% buzzwords and does'nt actually explain what the hell it is... So, someone enlighten me please. From what I can tell, it is some sort of paid hosting or something...
The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec² - Marcus Dolengo
It is MS Cloud Computing services which they want us all to move to. Azure is a shade of blue. Therefore it is Blue Movie service run by MicroSoft.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
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For years the normal business model was to run your own servers to which your users connected to do day to day business. The problem with this scenario is that it becomes a huge task to manage the hardware and software for such a model. For a small company it may be one man (such as myself) managing and even then it takes many hours. As companies grow it becomes worse. The notion of Software As A Service (SaaS) has been around for a while and that is what Azure is all about. It has - for some reason - been dubbed Cloud computing. I believe Amazon was one of the first to offer it. The premise is simple - Microsoft is building out huge server farms all over the world. Companies simply subscribe to Azure services instead of maintaining in-house servers and pay for what they use. Azure can provide service for a small company or a huge enterprise. Azure can scale to 10's of thousands of users and almost unlimited storage capacity. It is based on web technologies but it is NOT just another hosting service. The user interface is through a browser but you're not looking at web pages as such. More importantly developers can program their own services or you can buy time on existing services. And it's all done on a pay as you use basis. Every developer should look at the new programming tools which run on Visual Studio 2008. If you have access to isvinnovations.com there are many hours of training videos available. It is almost certainly the future of computing so pay attention folks. :cool:
So nice that someone took the time to explain SaaS (as the question in the first post requested) instead of just blindy bashing MS. MS only hard sells things that it thinks will fail. You can be sure that if MS has a new offering and you're not hearing about it that it's something you want to find out about. I'd bet that people who work (or have worked in the past) at small companies are going to be the only ones *really* interested in SaaS for the next few years. Bigger companies can't face the public outcry that is sure to follow when they layoff their entire section becuase they now use a subscription based model (from whoever, no necessarily MS) that saves them tens of thousands per year. I agree that it is almost certainly the future of computing. Much like how sending jobs overseas was scorned/laughed at/decried/ but finally accepted once it gained footing, "cloud computing" or whatever it ends up being called in the coming years is here to stay. Mike Devenney
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For years the normal business model was to run your own servers to which your users connected to do day to day business. The problem with this scenario is that it becomes a huge task to manage the hardware and software for such a model. For a small company it may be one man (such as myself) managing and even then it takes many hours. As companies grow it becomes worse. The notion of Software As A Service (SaaS) has been around for a while and that is what Azure is all about. It has - for some reason - been dubbed Cloud computing. I believe Amazon was one of the first to offer it. The premise is simple - Microsoft is building out huge server farms all over the world. Companies simply subscribe to Azure services instead of maintaining in-house servers and pay for what they use. Azure can provide service for a small company or a huge enterprise. Azure can scale to 10's of thousands of users and almost unlimited storage capacity. It is based on web technologies but it is NOT just another hosting service. The user interface is through a browser but you're not looking at web pages as such. More importantly developers can program their own services or you can buy time on existing services. And it's all done on a pay as you use basis. Every developer should look at the new programming tools which run on Visual Studio 2008. If you have access to isvinnovations.com there are many hours of training videos available. It is almost certainly the future of computing so pay attention folks. :cool:
I have watched a couple videos on it and how the services are built and published. From my stand point of running in the web world for almost a decade now, it really looks like it could be a hot deal. Cost will be a big factor, that is if it is not reasonable enough. It was cool though seeing a simple click of button can go from a single process to thousands if you need them. Think if a person started with a service they did not think would be too popular but then it gets posted everywhere and they have a flood of millions of inbound consumers. One a few seconds and it is expanded to handle the flood (with a flood on expenses too I would imagine ;) )
Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Visual Studio 2008 Express – Standard – Pro – What’s the diff? Thinking about Silverlight? www.SilverlightCity.com
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What the hell is Microsoft Azure Services? I was doing something and a pop-up came up with it, never heard of it so I had a look. The site is almost 100% buzzwords and does'nt actually explain what the hell it is... So, someone enlighten me please. From what I can tell, it is some sort of paid hosting or something...
The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec² - Marcus Dolengo
I see none of the comments have given any real information yet, so here is some: The official site: http://www.microsoft.com/azure[^] What it is (from that site): Azure is a set of Services that help developing Cloud Applications, and it's a platform for hosting these applications. Currently in Azure your have the following Services: Microsoft .NET Services: Basic services for developing cloud applications, include: - Access Control - Service Bus - Workflow Services Microsoft SQL Services: SQL Database in the cloud. - Microsoft SQL Data Services Live Services consists of: Mesh Services - makes it possible to build applications that span across digital devices and the web and enables data synchronization across services, applications and devices. Devices Synchronization Application Management Identity Services Directory Services User-Data Storage Services Communications and Presence Services Search Services Geospatial Services Microsoft SharePoint Services: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Services: As you can see, this is a huge offering. The hosting solution is definitely not for everyone. however, I am sure that if the price will be right and the service good some applications will be deployed to the cloud using this service. --- Adar Wesley
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What the hell is Microsoft Azure Services? I was doing something and a pop-up came up with it, never heard of it so I had a look. The site is almost 100% buzzwords and does'nt actually explain what the hell it is... So, someone enlighten me please. From what I can tell, it is some sort of paid hosting or something...
The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec² - Marcus Dolengo
I have a free Azure Beta account, but haven't been able to use it since I run XP at work and home. Ya gotta have Vista - which I don't what to use.
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What the hell is Microsoft Azure Services? I was doing something and a pop-up came up with it, never heard of it so I had a look. The site is almost 100% buzzwords and does'nt actually explain what the hell it is... So, someone enlighten me please. From what I can tell, it is some sort of paid hosting or something...
The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec² - Marcus Dolengo
The Azure CTP is MS' first step into the cloud computing and S+S (vs SaaS) world. The azure.com site may seem all buzzwords, but the developer portal and msdn library pages provide some excellent developer information http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/dd163896.aspx[^]. S+S is software + services, not just software as a service, but services running in the internet that interact with local software. So far, MS is really doing this one right. Be on notice, this may become something you will have to know... Addtl info: My take on moving to Azure: http://rdaarchitecture.blogspot.com/2009/02/making-move-to-microsoft-azure-ctp.html[^] Azure developer center: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/default.aspx[^]
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I have a free Azure Beta account, but haven't been able to use it since I run XP at work and home. Ya gotta have Vista - which I don't what to use.
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I see none of the comments have given any real information yet, so here is some: The official site: http://www.microsoft.com/azure[^] What it is (from that site): Azure is a set of Services that help developing Cloud Applications, and it's a platform for hosting these applications. Currently in Azure your have the following Services: Microsoft .NET Services: Basic services for developing cloud applications, include: - Access Control - Service Bus - Workflow Services Microsoft SQL Services: SQL Database in the cloud. - Microsoft SQL Data Services Live Services consists of: Mesh Services - makes it possible to build applications that span across digital devices and the web and enables data synchronization across services, applications and devices. Devices Synchronization Application Management Identity Services Directory Services User-Data Storage Services Communications and Presence Services Search Services Geospatial Services Microsoft SharePoint Services: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Services: As you can see, this is a huge offering. The hosting solution is definitely not for everyone. however, I am sure that if the price will be right and the service good some applications will be deployed to the cloud using this service. --- Adar Wesley
Adar, I like the answer, but I think it's worth taking one step further. To understand Azure, it's likely easiest to first understand Amazon's EC2 (Elastic Cloud Computing). EC2 has several features all grouped under "cloud computing". The first fundamental feature is "Hardware ignorance". With an EC2 account, you can "spin up" a server with just a couple of clicks. They have some precut "images" of servers, so that with a couple of extra clicks you can get a "Server 2003, IIS installed, SQL Express Installed" server. Now you have your own server, you can setup your database and configure your websites etc. all via remote desktop (or SSH for the Linux people) And really that's it, just like that you're cooking. No hardware, no service contract, you just "pay as you go". Now, Amazon evolved features around this. The next big thing is shared storage (which Amazon has). So when you have a server configured, you can actually save the image of that server and then spin it up and down. Amazon also supports a storage engine that is web-accessible. Effectively you upload a file and you get a URL that can then be used to access that file. This makes is easy to distribute files. Then Amazon came around with SimpleDB. It's an Entity-Store database. It's not like a normal relational database. It's not easy to "join" items, but it's quick to access a specific item and it scales across servers. Plus your Entity accessible via URL. So what does this have to do with MS? They're doing a similar thing but a little bigger plans with lots of MS technology involved. For example SQL Data Services (SDS) is an Entity data store like Amazon's SimpleDB. Basically a scalable database, but it plays well with SQL Server and integrates with VS and LINQ, etc. They have an engine for managing your servers (which are virtually hosted), they have an engine for sharing files. But they also have integration with all of the other MS technology listed in the post above. White paper here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/4/3/e43bb484-3b52-4fa8-a9f9-ec60a32954bc/Azure_Services_Platform.pdf[^]