Windows Azure bringing Cloud computing to the mainstream

Windows Azure is Microsoft’s Cloud Computing platform and it brings several ideas and concepts in one neat coherent whole.  

The first is developers should be able to write applications that run on the cloud and test it. This is given below. There are toolkits available to write Cloud Apps using Visual Studio and .NET. But since it is all built on Open protocols, these are equally programmable using Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, Java. As you can see in the picture below there are plug-ins for Eclipse and Perl, Python, PHP etc in the works.

1. Write Applications to Run On Windows Azure

Developers can start by writing applications to Windows Azure™ by using the Microsoft® .NET Framework and Microsoft Visual Studio®. Write web or mobile applications or author web services. In the future there will be support for both Microsoft and non-Microsoft programming languages and development environments.

Once you’re done coding the application, deploy it to the cloud and run it in Windows Azure and make it available via the internet to your end users. Scale compute capacity up or down based on traffic.

The next step is to take your Cloud application that you wrote and put it online for millions of users to access and use.

2. Use Azure Services In Online and On-Premises Applications

Take your cloud application to the next level by adding new functionality using additional Azure services. Use Live Services to reach over 460 million Live users, Microsoft .NET Services for workflow, access control, or service bus functionality, or use the Microsoft SQL Services cloud database. Developers can also write applications and web services that can be consumed by business partners or consumers.

Additionally, Azure services can also be used to augment an existing application that runs on a PC or a server to give on-premises software cloud capabilities. The services use industry standard SOAP, REST and XML protocols so using them won’t be a problem regardless of the operating system or programming language you’re using.

Bring It All Together

The Azure Services Platform is a cloud operating system and collection of services that can deliver web, mobile, or hybrid software-plus-services applications to users. Existing software can utilize the services to add cloud capabilities, and developers can easily write applications for the cloud to be used by end users, or write services that can be consumed within other applications.

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